Articles | Volume 16, issue 7
The Cryosphere, 16, 2725–2743, 2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2725-2022
The Cryosphere, 16, 2725–2743, 2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2725-2022
Research article
 | Highlight paper
13 Jul 2022
Research article  | Highlight paper | 13 Jul 2022

A probabilistic framework for quantifying the role of anthropogenic climate change in marine-terminating glacier retreats

John Erich Christian et al.

Model code and software

Marine-terminating-glacier stochastic retreat (release of code for publication) John Erich Christian https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6525750

aarobel/SSAsimpleM: Release of SSAsimpleM for publication Alexander Robel https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5245271

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Co-editor-in-chief
This paper provides a complete and novel perspective on how to attribute changes in glaciers to anthropogenic warming. It is accessible, well written with clear figures, and will certainly be of interest to the wider community.
Short summary
Marine-terminating glaciers have recently retreated dramatically, but the role of anthropogenic forcing remains uncertain. We use idealized model simulations to develop a framework for assessing the probability of rapid retreat in the context of natural climate variability. Our analyses show that century-scale anthropogenic trends can substantially increase the probability of retreats. This provides a roadmap for future work to formally assess the role of human activity in recent glacier change.