Impacts of marine instability across the East Antarctic Ice
Sheet on Southern Ocean dynamics

Phipps, Steven J.; Fogwill, Christopher J.; Turney, Christian S. M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2317-2016

Articles | Volume 10, issue 5

The Cryosphere, 10, 2317–2328, 2016

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2317-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue: International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) Second...

The Cryosphere, 10, 2317–2328, 2016

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2317-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 5

Research article 30 Sep 2016

Research article | 30 Sep 2016

Impacts of marine instability across the East Antarctic Ice Sheet on Southern Ocean dynamics

Steven J. Phipps et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2317-2016-supplement

Data sets

RAMP AMM-1 SAR Image Mosaic of Antarctica K. Jezek and RAMP Product Team https://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/nsidc0103_ramp_mosaic.gd.html

Short summary

We explore the effects of melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet on the Southern Ocean. Using a climate model, we find that melting changes the ocean circulation and causes warming of more than 1 °C at depth. We also discover the potential existence of a "domino effect", whereby the initial warming spreads westwards around the Antarctic continent. Melting of just one sector could therefore destabilise the wider Antarctic Ice Sheet, leading to substantial increases in global sea level.