title: Combustion of available fossil fuel resources sufficient to eliminate the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
abstract: The Antarctic Ice Sheet stores water equivalent to 58 m in global sea-level rise. We show in simulations using the Parallel Ice Sheet Model that burning the currently attainable fossil fuel resources is sufficient to eliminate the ice sheet. With cumulative fossil fuel emissions of 10,000 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC), Antarctica is projected to become almost ice-free with an average contribution to sea-level rise exceeding 3 m per century during the first millennium. Consistent with recent observations and simulations, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet becomes unstable with 600 to 800 GtC of additional carbon emissions. Beyond this additional carbon release, the destabilization of ice basins in both West and East Antarctica results in a threshold increase in global sea level. Unabated carbon emissions thus threaten the Antarctic Ice Sheet in its entirety with associated sea-level rise that far exceeds that of all other possible sources.
authors.affiliation: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14412 Potsdam, Germany. ; Physics Institute, Potsdam University, 14476 Potsdam, Germany. ; Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Ricarda
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Winkelmann
authors.affiliation: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14412 Potsdam, Germany. ; Physics Institute, Potsdam University, 14476 Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Levermann
authors.affiliation: BRIDGE (Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment), School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK. ; Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ridgwell
authors.affiliation: Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Caldeira
keywords: Antarctica; Carbon emissions; Climate change; Sea-level rise