The Cryosphere
The Cryosphere
TC
Articles | Volume 19, issue 1
Articles | Volume 19, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-63-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-63-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 19, issue 1
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
09 Jan 2025
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 09 Jan 2025

A topographically controlled tipping point for complete Greenland ice sheet melt

Michele Petrini, Meike D. W. Scherrenberg, Laura Muntjewerf, Miren Vizcaino, Raymond Sellevold, Gunter R. Leguy, William H. Lipscomb, and Heiko Goelzer

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Latest update: 09 Jan 2025
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Co-editor-in-chief
This interesting study investigates the vulnerability of the Greenland ice sheet to climate warming. Specifically, the article addresses what it takes to make the Greenland ice sheet disappear—an event that would cause several metres of sea-level rise. The authors show that a tipping-point behaviour can be identified in their model, demonstrating that once a threshold has been crossed, Greenland becomes almost completely ice-free.
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Short summary
Anthropogenic warming is causing accelerated Greenland ice sheet melt. Here, we use a computer model to understand how prolonged warming and ice melt could threaten ice sheet stability. We find a threshold beyond which Greenland will lose more than 80 % of its ice over several thousand years, due to the interaction of surface and solid-Earth processes. Nearly complete Greenland ice sheet melt occurs when the ice margin disconnects from a region of high elevation in western Greenland.
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