title: Sea-level feedback lowers projections of future Antarctic Ice-Sheet mass loss.
abstract: The stability of marine sectors of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) in a warming climate has been identified as the largest source of uncertainty in projections of future sea-level rise. Sea-level fall near the grounding line of a retreating marine ice sheet has a stabilizing influence on the ice sheets, and previous studies have established the importance of this feedback on ice age AIS evolution. Here we use a coupled ice sheet-sea-level model to investigate the impact of the feedback mechanism on future AIS retreat over centennial and millennial timescales for a range of emission scenarios. We show that the combination of bedrock uplift and sea-surface drop associated with ice-sheet retreat significantly reduces AIS mass loss relative to a simulation without these effects included. Sensitivity analyses show that the stabilization tends to be greatest for lower emission scenarios and Earth models characterized by a thin elastic lithosphere and low-viscosity upper mantle, as is the case for West Antarctica.
authors.affiliation: Center for Atmosphere Ocean Sciences, Couratnt Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, New York 10012, USA.|Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, 3450 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 0E8.
authors.forename: Natalya
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16801, USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pollard
authors.affiliation: Center for Atmosphere Ocean Sciences, Couratnt Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, New York 10012, USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Holland