The Sea-Level Fingerprint of West Antarctic Collapse

Permanent Link:: http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15061863/00001

Material Information

Subjects / Keywords:: Climate change ( lcsh )
Antarctica ( lcsh )
Sea level rise ( lcsh )
Ice sheets ( lcsh )

Abstract:: There is widespread concern that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), which is characterized by extensive marine-based sectors (1), may be prone to collapse in a warming world. The recent Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2) estimated that this collapse would lead to a sea-level rise of ~5 m. This estimate is derived by converting the total volume of all grounded portions of WAIS into water, filling in any topographic holes associated with marine-based sectors, and spreading the remaining water uniformly (i.e., eustatically) across the oceans (3). Although the appropriate effective eustatic value (EEV) forWAIS collapse is uncertain (e.g., will non–marine-based sectors vanish?), we show that, whatever the value, sea-level changes at some coastal sites will be significantly higher (or, less commonly, lower) than the EEV. ( English )

Source Institution:: Florida International University
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