Articles | Volume 20, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1139-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1139-2026
Research article
 | 
12 Feb 2026
Research article |  | 12 Feb 2026

Hysteresis of the Greenland ice sheet from the Last Glacial Maximum to the future

Lucía Gutiérrez-González, Alexander Robinson, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Ilaria Tabone, Jan Swierczek-Jereczek, Daniel Moreno-Parada, and Marisa Montoya

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Cited articles

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Arndt, J. E., Jokat, W., and Dorschel, B.: The last glaciation and deglaciation of the Northeast Greenland continental shelf revealed by hydro-acoustic data, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 160, 45–56, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.01.018, 2017. a, b
Bamber, J. L., Oppenheimer, M., Kopp, R. E., Aspinall, W. P., and Cooke, R. M.: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116, 11195–11200, 2019. a
Bindoff, N. L., Stott, P. A., AchutaRao, K. M., Allen, M. R., Gillett, N., Gutzler, D., Hansingo, K., Hegerl, G., Hu, Y., Jain, S., Mokhov, I. I., Overland, J., Perlwitz, J., Sebbari, R., and Zhang X.: Detection and attribution of climate change: from global to regional, Climate change 2013: the physical science basis, Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.022, 2014. a
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The Greenland ice sheet is considered a tipping element: if temperatures exceed its threshold, it would transition to a virtually ice-free state and the ice losses could be irreversible on very long timescales. We study its stability across the full range of glacial-interglacial temperatures, as well as those expected in coming centuries. We find a future critical threshold between 1.5-2ºC of global warming, another under colder climates, and persistent hysteresis across the full range of study.
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