The rising earth beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet will likely become a major factor in future sea level rise, a new study suggests.
The rising earth beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet will likely become a major factor in future sea level rise, a new study suggests.
Despite feeling like a stationary mass, most solid ground is undergoing a process of deformation, sinking and rising in response to many environmental factors. In Antarctica, melting glacial ice means less weight on the bedrock below, allowing it to rise. How the rising earth interacts with the overlying ice sheet to affect sea level rise is not well-studied, said Terry Wilson, co-author of the study and a senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at The Ohio State University.
In the new study, Wilson’s colleagues at McGill University developed a model to predict how these interactions could impact global sea level, finding that if humans can lower greenhouse gas emissions and global warming is slowed, upward shifts in the solid earth could reduce Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise by about 40%, significantly bolstering the best case scenarios for global sea level rise. In this low-emissions scenario, land uplift slows the flow of ice from land to ocean, allowing for more of the ice sheet to be preserved.
Conversely, if humans are unable to lower carbon emissions in time, ice retreat will outpace uplift, pushing ocean water away from Antarctica and amplifying sea level rise. These events could significantly worsen the most dire models of projected sea level rise along populated coastlines, said Wilson.
Read more at Ohio State University
Image: View of the Whitmore Mountains site from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) system location, with the seismic system near the Twin Otter aircraft below. Credit: Terry Wilson via Ohio State University
