Emulating the expansion of Antarctic perennial firn aquifers  in the 21st century

Veldhuijsen, Sanne B. M.; van de Berg, Willem Jan; Kuipers Munneke, Peter; Hansen, Nicolaj; Boberg, Fredrik; Kittel, Christoph; Amory, Charles; van den Broeke, Michiel R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5157-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5157-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5157-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

Research article

|

29 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 29 Oct 2025

Emulating the expansion of Antarctic perennial firn aquifers in the 21st century

Sanne B. M. Veldhuijsen, Willem Jan van de Berg, Peter Kuipers Munneke, Nicolaj Hansen, Fredrik Boberg, Christoph Kittel, Charles Amory, and Michiel R. van den Broeke

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5157-2025-supplement

Data sets

Data perennial firn aquifer emulator Sanne B. M. Veldhuijsen et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13692364

IMAU-FDMv1.2AD perennial LWC (1950--2100) Sanne B. M. Veldhuijsen et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13692385

Model code and software

IMAU-FDM v12AD TC release Sanne B. M. Veldhuijsen et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10723570

Code perennial firn aquifer emulator Sanne B. M. Veldhuijsen et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13750024

Short summary

Perennial firn aquifers (PFAs), year-round bodies of liquid water within firns, can potentially impact ice-shelf and ice-sheet stability. We developed a fast XGBoost firn emulator to predict the 21st-century distribution of PFAs in Antarctica for 12 climatic forcing datasets. Our findings suggest that, in low-emission scenarios, PFAs remain confined to the Antarctic Peninsula. However, in a high-emission scenario, PFAs are projected to expand to a region in West Antarctica and East Antarctica.