Stabilizing feedbacks allow for multiple states of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a fully coupled Earth System – Ice Sheet Model

Andernach, Malena; Kapsch, Marie-Luise; Mikolajewicz, Uwe

doi:10.5194/tc-20-1047-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1047-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1047-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

Research article

|

11 Feb 2026

Research article |

| 11 Feb 2026

Stabilizing feedbacks allow for multiple states of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a fully coupled Earth System – Ice Sheet Model

Malena Andernach, Marie-Luise Kapsch, and Uwe Mikolajewicz

Data sets

Data and plots for the paper ``Stabilizing feedbacks allow for multiple states of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a fully coupled Earth Syste - Ice Sheet Model'' M. Andernach et al. https://doi.org/10.17617/3.URUHJ7

Model code and software

Data and plots for the paper ``Stabilizing feedbacks allow for multiple states of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a fully coupled Earth Syste - Ice Sheet Model'' M. Andernach et al. https://doi.org/10.17617/3.URUHJ7

Short summary

Using a fully-coupled climate-ice sheet model, we find that the Greenland Ice Sheet has at least four steady states under pre-industrial CO₂ concentrations, which are stabilized by several climate-ice sheet feedbacks. We also show that interactions with the Antarctic Ice Sheet impact the timing of some state transitions. The multistability implies that once a certain volume threshold is passed, the mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet would be irreversible under subsequently reduced CO₂levels.