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Recently, seasonal changes in sea ice cover have been found to elevate basal melt rates of the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) calving front at sensitive regions. Melting at these sensitive regions has been found to impact ice sheet mass balance. However, the influence of these seasonally elevated basal melt rates on RIS flow variability is not yet fully understood. This paper aims to explore whether seasonal perturbations in basal melt rates of the RIS can explain intra-annual variations in ice flow measured by GNSS at four sites across the ice shelf. We use the automatic differentiation tool in the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) to identify regions of the RIS where changes in basal melt affect ice velocities at the GNSS sites. Next, we seasonally perturb Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation (MITgcm) basal melt rates in ISSM at these sensitive regions to try and replicate the GNSS ice flow observations. The GNSS observations display clear intra-annual velocity variability at the four sites, with two distinct peaks observed in austral summer and austral winter. We can replicate this intra-annual velocity variation for GNSS sites near the calving front by seasonally perturbing the basal melt rates at the identified sensitive regions of the ice shelf. We argue that the perturbed seasonal basal melt variability at sensitive regions along the calving front is a realistic scenario for the RIS. Thus, we suggest that the GNSS-recorded intra-annual velocity variations along the calving front could be partly driven by seasonal changes in basal melting today. We also try to replicate intra-annual velocity variability observed at the Siple Coast by seasonally perturbing basal melt rates at sensitive regions there. However, we are unable to replicate similar magnitudes of velocity variations to the GNSS measurements and suspect that the perturbed seasonal basal melt variability is unrealistic, with no observations of seasonally high basal melt rates at the Siple Coast grounding lines or pinning points. Thus, seasonal changes in basal melt cannot explain the observed intra-annual velocity variability at all the GNSS sites, and further work is needed. Our sensitivity maps highlight regions of the ice shelf where changes in basal melt most influence velocities, and are a valuable addition to fieldwork campaigns and modelling studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many floating ice shelves in Antarctica buttress the ice streams feeding them, thereby reducing the discharge of icebergs into the ocean. The rate at which ice shelves calve icebergs and how fast they flow determine whether they advance, retreat, or remain stable, exerting a first-order control on ice discharge. To parameterize calving within ice sheet models, several empirical and physical calving "laws" have been proposed in the past few decades. Such laws emphasize dissimilar features, including along- and across-flow strain rates (the eigencalving law), a fracture yield criterion (the von Mises law), longitudinal stretching (the crevasse depth law), and a simple ice thickness threshold (the minimum thickness law), among others. Despite the multitude of established calving laws, these laws remain largely unvalidated for the Antarctic Ice Sheet, rendering it difficult to assess the broad applicability of any given law in Antarctica. We address this shortcoming through a set of numerical experiments that evaluate existing calving laws for 10 ice shelves around the Antarctic Ice Sheet. We utilize the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) and implement four calving laws under constant external forcing, calibrating the free parameter of each of these calving laws for each ice shelf by assuming that the current position of the ice front is in steady state and finding the set of parameters that best achieves this position over a simulation of 200 years. We find that, in general, the eigencalving and von Mises laws best reproduce observed calving front positions under the steady-state position assumption. These results will streamline future modeling efforts of Antarctic ice shelves by better informing the relevant physics of Antarctic-style calving on a shelf-by-shelf basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thwaites Glacier (TG) plays an important role in future sea-level rise (SLR) contribution from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Recent observations show that TG is losing mass, and its grounding zone is retreating. Previous modeling has produced a wide range of results concerning whether, when, and how rapidly further retreat will occur under continued warming. These differences arise at least in part from ill-constrained processes, including friction from the bed, and future atmosphere and ocean forcing affecting ice-shelf and grounding-zone buttressing. Here, we apply the Ice Sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) with a range of specifications of basal sliding behavior in response to varying ocean forcing. We find that basin-wide bed character strongly affects TG's response to sub-shelf melt by modulating how changes in driving stress are balanced by the bed as the glacier responds to external forcing. Resulting differences in dynamic thinning patterns alter modeled grounding-line retreat across Thwaites' catchment, affecting both modeled rates and magnitudes of SLR contribution from this critical sector of the ice sheet. Bed character introduces large uncertainties in projections of TG under equal external forcing, pointing to this as a crucial constraint needed in predictive models of West Antarctica. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical ice sheet models use sliding laws to connect basal shear stress and ice velocity to simulate ice sliding. A sliding‐law parameter β2 is used to control Weertman's sliding law in numerical ice sheet models. Basal reflectivity derived from ice‐penetrating radar also provides information about frozen or thawed conditions underneath glaciers. To assess whether basal reflectivity can be used to constrain β2, we carry out statistical experiments between two recently published datasets: β2 inferred from three numerical ice sheet models (ISSM, Úa and STREAMICE) and airborne radar‐derived relative basal reflectivity from the AGASEA‐BBAS mission over Thwaites Glacier (TG). Our results show no robust correlation between the β2–relative reflectivity pair. Pearson's correlation coefficient, a test of linearity, ranges from −0.26 to −0.38. Spearman's correlation coefficient, which does not require a linear assumption, is also modest (∼−0.35). We conclude that β2 and relative basal reflectivity underneath TG do not infer similar basal conditions. Plain Language Summary: Ice sheet models use equations called sliding laws to simulate how fast or slow ice can flow over the bed of a glacier. One such sliding law is Weertman's sliding law, which is widely used by numerical ice sheet models. A parameter called β2 is used in Weertman's sliding law to match the observed velocity. Another parameter called basal reflectivity, derived from airborne ice penetrating radar data, is widely used to identify whether the bed underneath a glacier is frozen or thawed. Frozen or thawed conditions impact how fast a glacier can slide over its bed. Here, we try to find statistical correlations between β2 and basal reflectivity over Thwaites Glacier (TG), West Antarctica. Our results show that the correlation values are not robust, which suggests that β2 and basal reflectivity do not identify similar conditions at the bed underneath TG. Key Points: Correlation experiments are carried out between Weertman's sliding‐law parameter β2 and radar‐derived relative basal reflectivityThe correlations between β2 and relative basal reflectivity are low, suggesting that they do not identify similar conditions at the bedThe correlations do not improve with any value of the sliding exponent m between 3 and 20 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately modelling the contribution of Greenland and Antarctica to sea level rise requires solving partial differential equations at a high spatial resolution. In this paper, we discuss the scaling of the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) applied to the Greenland Ice Sheet with horizontal grid resolutions varying between 10 and 0.25 km. The model setup used as benchmark problem comprises a variety of modules with different levels of complexity and computational demands. The core builds the so-called stress balance module, which uses the higher-order approximation (or Blatter–Pattyn) of the Stokes equations, including free surface and ice-front evolution as well as thermodynamics in form of an enthalpy balance, and a mesh of linear prismatic finite elements, to compute the ice flow. We develop a detailed user-oriented, yet low-overhead, performance instrumentation tailored to the requirements of Earth system models and run scaling tests up to 6144 Message Passing Interface (MPI) processes. The results show that the computation of the Greenland model scales overall well up to 3072 MPI processes but is eventually slowed down by matrix assembly, the output handling and lower-dimensional problems that employ lower numbers of unknowns per MPI process. We also discuss improvements of the scaling and identify further improvements needed for climate research. The instrumented version of ISSM thus not only identifies potential performance bottlenecks that were not present at lower core counts but also provides the capability to continually monitor the performance of ISSM code basis. This is of long-term significance as the overall performance of ISSM model depends on the subtle interplay between algorithms, their implementation, underlying libraries, compilers, runtime systems and hardware characteristics, all of which are in a constant state of flux. We believe that future large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) systems will continue to employ the MPI-based programming paradigm on the road to exascale. Our scaling study pertains to a particular modelling setup available within ISSM and does not address accelerator techniques such as the use of vector units or GPUs. However, with 6144 MPI processes, we identified issues that need to be addressed in order to improve the ability of the ISSM code base to take advantage of upcoming systems that will require scaling to even higher numbers of MPI processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers as well as other ice streams in West Antarctica have been changing dramatically over the past decades. Although changes in ocean conditions are likely the primary driver of these changes, it remains unclear where other processes could cause more mass loss. By employing Automatic Differentiation and two independent ice‐sheet models, we construct maps of the sensitivity of the volume above floatation to changes in ocean‐induced melt rates, ice rigidity, basal friction, and surface mass balance. We find that changes in basal melt close to the grounding lines and along shear margins have a larger impact on the glaciers' final volume. The glaciers are sensitive to changes in basal friction on regions close to the grounding lines, while changes in ice rigidity has a larger impact along the shear margins of Pine Island. The sensitivity to surface mass balance is uniform over grounded ice. Plain Language Summary: The Amundsen Sea Embayment is the region of Antarctica that is changing the fastest. Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers have been thinning and accelerating over the past three decades and it is not clear whether they are going to continue to do so over the coming years. Here, we use two models of ice‐sheet flow and employ a new tool that shows what physical process is the most critical, and where, if we are interested in the future contribution to sea‐level rise of this sector of Antarctica. We find that the basal friction close to the zone where the ice starts to float exerts a very strong control on the mass balance. We also find that the connection between grounded ice and pinning points under the ice shelf is key to keep the system stable. Increasing basal melting or weakening the ice in this sector would lead to significant acceleration and further mass loss. Key Points: Future ice discharge is sensitive to basal conditions within 60 km of the grounding zonePine Island Glacier's projected mass balance is most sensitive to the strength of its shear marginsThe integrity of Thwaites' ice shelf connecting to the Eastern Ice Rise is critical [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using three independent ice‐flow models and several satellite‐based datasets, we assess the importance of correctly capturing ice‐shelf breakup, shelf thinning, and reduction in basal traction from ungrounding in reproducing observed speed‐up and thinning of Thwaites Glacier between 1995 and 2015. We run several transient numerical simulations applying these three perturbations individually. Our results show that ocean‐induced ice‐shelf thinning generates most of the observed grounding line retreat, inland speed‐up, and mass loss, in agreement with previous work. We improve the agreement with observed inland speed‐up and thinning by prescribing changes in ice‐shelf geometry and a reduction in basal traction over areas that became ungrounded since 1995, suggesting that shelf breakups and thinning‐induced reduction in basal traction play a critical role on Thwaites's dynamics, as pointed out by previous studies. These findings suggest that modeling Thwaites's future requires reliable ocean‐induced melt estimates in models that respond accurately to downstream perturbations. Plain Language Summary: Recent observations have shown that Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, has been accelerating and thinning over the past decades and its floating part is quickly breaking up. While these observations suggest that warmer ocean currents are the main factor responsible for these changes, it remains unclear which of the following processes are most important to the glacier's dynamics: (a) breakup of its floating section, (b) ice‐shelf thinning, or (c) changes in the grounded‐ice area. By employing three ice‐sheet models and several satellite‐based datasets, we find that thinning induced by ocean melting and the resulting reduction of grounded‐ice area explain most of the observed flow acceleration and mass loss of Thwaites, in agreement with other studies. We also find that the breakup of the floating section plays an important role on Thwaites's dynamics. These findings suggest that improved forecasts of Thwaites's future require reliable ocean‐induced melt estimates and improved model response to changes in ice‐shelf thickness and geometry. Key Points: The reduction in basal traction due to grounding line retreat plays a critical role on Thwaites's dynamics in agreement with previous studiesOcean‐induced melt leads to a sustained acceleration and grounding line retreat consistent with observations and earlier workImproved forecasts of Thwaites demand reliable melt estimates coupled to models that accurately reproduce the response to downstream changes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Totten Glacier (TG), the primary ice discharger of East Antarctica, contains 3.85 m sea level rise equivalent (SLRe) ice mass and has displayed ocean‐driven dynamic change since at least the early 2000s. We project TG's evolution through 2100 in an asynchronously coupled ice‐ocean model, forced at the ocean boundaries with anomalies in CMIP6 projected temperature, salinity, and velocity. Consistent with previous studies, the Antarctic Slope Current continues to modulate warm water inflow toward TG in future simulations. Warm water (−0.5 – 1°C) accesses TG's sub‐ice shelf cavity through depressions along the eastern ice front, driving sustained retreat of TG's eastern grounding zone that cannot be captured in uncoupled models. In high emission scenarios, warm water overcomes topographic barriers and dislodges TG's southern grounding zone around 2070, increasing the rate of grounded ice loss 3.5‐fold (10–35 Gt/yr) and resulting in a total 4.20 mm SLRe loss by 2100. Plain Language Summary: Totten Glacier (TG), East Antarctica, has been losing ice mass and retreating as a result of warm ocean water melting the underside of this glacier. To simulate this glacier's future evolution in response to realistic ocean forcing, we combine an ice sheet model of TG with a newly developed East Antarctic ocean model configuration and run simulations through 2100. Consistent with previous modeling studies, we find that the strength of the Antarctic Slope Current controls the presence of warm water near TG in future simulations. Significant retreat is projected on TG's eastern and southern sectors. On the eastern side, warm ocean water flows directly along the transition of floating to grounded ice, causing sustained melt throughout the entire simulation in all experiments. In contrast, warm ocean water can only access and promote retreat of TG's southern sector in the strongest warming scenarios by 2070, significantly accelerating TG's rate of mass loss and resulting in a total sea level rise contribution of 4.20 mm by 2100. Key Points: Simulations of Totten Glacier (TG) over the 21st century are performed in a coupled ice‐ocean modelA 3.5‐fold increase in grounded ice loss follows retreat of TG's southern grounding zone, resulting in a 4.2 mm sea level rise contributionCoupled model results capture the spatial distribution of ocean‐driven basal melting and lead to retreat on the eastern flank [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-dependent simulations of ice sheets require two equations to be solved: the mass transport equation, derived from the conservation of mass, and the stress balance equation, derived from the conservation of momentum. The mass transport equation controls the advection of ice from the interior of the ice sheet towards its periphery, thereby changing its geometry. Because it is based on an advection equation, a stabilization scheme needs to be employed when solved using the finite-element method. Several stabilization schemes exist in the finite-element method framework, but their respective accuracy and robustness have not yet been systematically assessed for glaciological applications. Here, we compare classical schemes used in the context of the finite-element method: (i) artificial diffusion, (ii) streamline upwinding, (iii) streamline upwind Petrov–Galerkin, (iv) discontinuous Galerkin, and (v) flux-corrected transport. We also look at the stress balance equation, which is responsible for computing the ice velocity that "advects" the ice downstream. To improve the velocity computation accuracy, the ice-sheet modeling community employs several sub-element parameterizations of physical processes at the grounding line, the point where the grounded ice starts to float onto the ocean. Here, we introduce a new sub-element parameterization for the driving stress, the force that drives the ice-sheet flow. We analyze the response of each stabilization scheme by running transient simulations forced by ice-shelf basal melt. The simulations are based on an idealized ice-sheet geometry for which there is no influence of bedrock topography. We also perform transient simulations of the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica, where real bedrock and surface elevations are employed. In both idealized and real ice-sheet experiments, stabilization schemes based on artificial diffusion lead systematically to a bias towards more mass loss in comparison to the other schemes and therefore should be avoided or employed with a sufficiently high mesh resolution in the vicinity of the grounding line. We also run diagnostic simulations to assess the accuracy of the driving stress parameterization, which, in combination with an adequate parameterization for basal stress, provides improved numerical convergence in ice speed computations and more accurate results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most important challenges faced by ice flow models is how to represent basal and rheological conditions, which are challenging to obtain from direct observations. A common practice is to use numerical inversions to calculate estimates for the unknown properties, but there are many possible methods and not one standardised approach. As such, every ice flow model has a unique initialisation procedure. Here we compare the outputs of inversions from three different ice flow models, each employing a variant of adjoint-based optimisation to calculate basal sliding coefficients and flow rate factors using the same observed surface velocities and ice thickness distribution. The region we focus on is the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica, the subject of much investigation due to rapid changes in the area over recent decades. We find that our inversions produce similar distributions of basal sliding across all models, despite using different techniques, implying that the methods used are highly robust and represent the physical equations without much influence by individual model behaviours. Transferring the products of inversions between models results in time-dependent simulations displaying variability on the order of or lower than existing model intercomparisons. Focusing on contributions to sea level, the highest variability we find in simulations run in the same model with different inversion products is 32 %, over a 40-year period, a difference of 3.67 mm. There is potential for this to be improved with further standardisation of modelling processes, and the lowest variability within a single model is 13 %, or 1.82 mm over 40 years. While the successful transfer of inversion outputs from one model to another requires some extra effort and technical knowledge of the particular models involved, it is certainly possible and could indeed be useful for future intercomparison projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Drygalski Ice Tongue in East Antarctica stretches 90 km into the Ross Sea and influences the local ocean circulation, and persistence of the Terra Nova Bay Polynya. We examine the controls on the size of this floating ice body by comparing the propagation of six large fractures on the ice tongue's northern side using 21 years of Landsat imagery with hydrostatic ice thickness maps and strain rate calculations. We also apply a subglacial hydrology model to estimate the location and discharge from subglacial channels over the grounding line and compare these with basal channels identified along the ice tongue using remote sensing and airborne radar data. Our results suggest that large fractures are inhibited from full-width propagation by thicker ice between basal channels. We hypothesize that only once the ice tongue thins towards the terminus, can fractures propagate and cause large calving events. This suggests an important relationship between the melting of floating ice from subglacial and ocean sources and the expansion of fractures that lead to ice tongue calving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time dependent simulations of ice sheets require two equations to be solved: the mass transport equation, derived from the conservation of mass, and the stress balance equation, derived from the conservation of momentum. The mass transport equation controls the advection of ice from the interior of the ice sheet towards its periphery, thereby changing its geometry. Because it is based on a hyperbolic partial differential equation, a stabilization scheme needs to be employed when solved using the finite element method. Several stabilization schemes exist in the finite element method framework, but their respective accuracy and robustness have not yet been systematically assessed for glaciological applications. Here, we compare classical schemes used in the context of the finite element method: (i) Artificial Diffusion, (ii) Streamline Upwinding, (iii) Streamline Upwind Petrov-Galerkin, (iv) Discontinuous Galerkin, and (v) Flux Corrected Transport. We also look at the stress balance equation, which is responsible for computing the ice velocity that `advects' the ice dowstream. To improve the velocity computation accuracy, the ice sheet modeling community employs several sub-element parameterizations of physical processes at the grounding line, the point where the grounded ice starts to float onto the ocean. Here, we introduce a new sub- element parameterization for the driving stress, the force that drives the ice sheet flow. We analyze the response of each stabilization scheme by running transient simulations forced by ice shelf basal melt. The simulations are based on an idealized ice sheet geometry for which there is no influence of bedrock topography. We also perform transient simulations of the Amundsen Sea Sector, West Antarctica, where real bedrock and surface elevations are employed. In both idealized and real ice sheet experiments, stabilization schemes based on artificial diffusion lead systematically to a bias towards more mass loss in comparison to the other schemes, and therefore, should be avoided or employed with a sufficiently high mesh resolution in the vicinity of the grounding line. We also run diagnostic simulations to assess the accuracy of the driving stress parameterization, which in combination with an adequate parameterization for basal stress, provides improved numerical convergence in ice speed computations and more accurate results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antarctica's ice shelves modulate the grounded ice flow, and weakening of ice shelves due to climate forcing will decrease their 'buttressing' effect, causing a response in the grounded ice. While the processes governing ice-shelf weakening are complex, uncertainties in the response of the grounded ice sheet are also difficult to assess. The Antarctic BUttressing Model Intercomparison Project (ABUMIP) compares ice-sheet model responses to decrease in buttressing by investigating the 'end-member' scenario of total and sustained loss of ice shelves. Although unrealistic, this scenario enables gauging the sensitivity of an ensemble of 15 ice-sheet models to a total loss of buttressing, hence exhibiting the full potential of marine ice-sheet instability. All models predict that this scenario leads to multi-metre (1–12 m) sea-level rise over 500 years from present day. West Antarctic ice sheet collapse alone leads to a 1.91–5.08 m sea-level rise due to the marine ice-sheet instability. Mass loss rates are a strong function of the sliding/friction law, with plastic laws cause a further destabilization of the Aurora and Wilkes Subglacial Basins, East Antarctica. Improvements to marine ice-sheet models have greatly reduced variability between modelled ice-sheet responses to extreme ice-shelf loss, e.g. compared to the SeaRISE assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a topographic digital elevation model (DEM) for Princess Elizabeth Land (PEL), East Antarctica. The DEM covers an area of ∼900000 km2 and was built from radio-echo sounding data collected during four campaigns since 2015. Previously, to generate the Bedmap2 topographic product, PEL's bed was characterized from low-resolution satellite gravity data across an otherwise large (>200 km wide) data-free zone. We use the mass conservation (MC) method to produce an ice thickness grid across faster flowing (>30 myr-1) regions of the ice sheet and streamline diffusion in slower flowing areas. The resulting ice thickness model is integrated with an ice surface model to build the bed DEM. Together with BedMachine Antarctica and Bedmap2, this new bed DEM completes the first-order measurement of subglacial continental Antarctica – an international mission that began around 70 years ago. The ice thickness data and bed DEMs of PEL (resolved horizontally at 500 m relative to ice surface elevations obtained from the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica – REMA) are accessible from 10.5281/zenodo.4023343 (Cui et al., 2020a) and 10.5281/zenodo.4023393 (Cui et al., 2020b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Getz Ice Shelf, the largest producer of ice shelf meltwater in Antarctica, buttresses glaciers that hold enough ice to raise sea level by 22 cm. We present a new bathymetry of its sub‐ice shelf cavity using a three‐dimensional inversion of airborne gravity data constrained by multibeam bathymetry at sea and a reconstruction of the bedrock from mass conservation on land. The new bathymetry is deeper than previously estimated with differences exceeding 500 m in a number of regions. When incorporated into an ocean model, it yields a better description of the spatial distribution of ice shelf melt, specifically along glacier grounding lines. While the melt intensity is overestimated because of a positive bias in ocean thermal forcing, the study reveals the main pathways along which warm oceanic water enters the cavity and corroborates the observed rapid retreat of Berry Glacier along a deep channel with a retrograde bed slope. Plain Language Summary: The Getz Ice Shelf is a major ice shelf in West Antarctica that is rapidly melting. Its exposure to warm oceanic water has made it the largest producer of ice shelf meltwater in Antarctica. To understand its evolution and the impact on sea level rise of the glaciers that flow into it, it is essential to obtain a better description of the bathymetry beneath its hundreds of meters of floating ice. We use a combination of airborne gravity and other data to infer the depth of the cavity. We find the seabed to be in several regions more than 500 m deeper than previously reported, hence revealing one of the deepest ice shelf cavities in West Antarctica. When used in combination with an ocean model, the bathymetry helps to better explain the spatial variability in melt observed from remote sensing data, the pathways for warm waters to reach the ice shelf, and the recent evolution of selected glaciers. Key Points: Sub‐ice shelf bathymetry reconstructed with a 3D inversion of gravity data reveals one of the deepest ice shelf cavities in West AntarcticaAn ocean model coupled with the new bathymetry indicates pathways where warm ocean water enters the cavityThe new bathymetry helps elucidate the recent evolution of Getz glaciers and explain why Getz is a large producer of meltwater [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) has the potential to raise global sea levels by ∼52 m. Here, we model the evolution of select EAIS catchments to 2100 using three basal melt rate parameterizations and force our model with surface mass balance and ocean thermal anomalies from 10 global climate models. While the domain loses mass under low‐emission scenarios, it gains ∼10‐mm sea‐level rise equivalent ice volume (SLRe) under high‐emission scenarios. The primary region of thinning is within 50 km upstream of Totten Glacier's grounding line. Totten's glacial discharge is modulated by the migration of its grounding line, which is sensitive to brief intrusions of ocean water at temperatures higher than present. Once the grounding line is dislodged, Totten's ice velocity increases by up to 70% of present‐day values, resulting in ∼6‐mm SLRe loss from this sector. Plain Language Summary: Predicting how much the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) will contribute to global sea‐level rise is critical to the welfare of the global community. In our study, we model a large sector of EAIS to 2100 using a variety of different ocean melting representations and include both ocean temperature and snowfall predictions taken from two suites of climate model output. We find that by 2100, increases in snowfall outweigh increases in ice loss, and this sector of the EAIS will be responsible for a 10‐mm decrease in global sea level under the highest climate warming scenarios. We find that Totten Glacier is most at risk to enhanced ocean warming, with the southernmost portion of this glacier acting as an important control on whether it loses ice or remains at its present‐day configuration. If this portion of Totten is melted, this glacier may lose enough ice mass to raise global sea levels by 6mm by 2100. Key Points: Atmospheric changes will govern East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) mass balance to 2100EAIS is projected to lose mass under RCP2.6 but gain mass under high‐emission scenarios by 2100Mass loss from Totten Glacier is dependent on the retention of a vulnerable 10‐km ice plain [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sea level contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet constitutes a large uncertainty in future sea level projections. Here we apply a linear response theory approach to 16 state-of-the-art ice sheet models to estimate the Antarctic ice sheet contribution from basal ice shelf melting within the 21st century. The purpose of this computation is to estimate the uncertainty of Antarctica's future contribution to global sea level rise that arises from large uncertainty in the oceanic forcing and the associated ice shelf melting. Ice shelf melting is considered to be a major if not the largest perturbation of the ice sheet's flow into the ocean. However, by computing only the sea level contribution in response to ice shelf melting, our study is neglecting a number of processes such as surface-mass-balance-related contributions. In assuming linear response theory, we are able to capture complex temporal responses of the ice sheets, but we neglect any self-dampening or self-amplifying processes. This is particularly relevant in situations in which an instability is dominating the ice loss. The results obtained here are thus relevant, in particular wherever the ice loss is dominated by the forcing as opposed to an internal instability, for example in strong ocean warming scenarios. In order to allow for comparison the methodology was chosen to be exactly the same as in an earlier study (Levermann et al., 2014) but with 16 instead of 5 ice sheet models. We include uncertainty in the atmospheric warming response to carbon emissions (full range of CMIP5 climate model sensitivities), uncertainty in the oceanic transport to the Southern Ocean (obtained from the time-delayed and scaled oceanic subsurface warming in CMIP5 models in relation to the global mean surface warming), and the observed range of responses of basal ice shelf melting to oceanic warming outside the ice shelf cavity. This uncertainty in basal ice shelf melting is then convoluted with the linear response functions of each of the 16 ice sheet models to obtain the ice flow response to the individual global warming path. The model median for the observational period from 1992 to 2017 of the ice loss due to basal ice shelf melting is 10.2 mm, with a likely range between 5.2 and 21.3 mm. For the same period the Antarctic ice sheet lost mass equivalent to 7.4 mm of global sea level rise, with a standard deviation of 3.7 mm (Shepherd et al., 2018) including all processes, especially surface-mass-balance changes. For the unabated warming path, Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5), we obtain a median contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to global mean sea level rise from basal ice shelf melting within the 21st century of 17 cm, with a likely range (66th percentile around the mean) between 9 and 36 cm and a very likely range (90th percentile around the mean) between 6 and 58 cm. For the RCP2.6 warming path, which will keep the global mean temperature below 2 ∘ C of global warming and is thus consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement, the procedure yields a median of 13 cm of global mean sea level contribution. The likely range for the RCP2.6 scenario is between 7 and 24 cm, and the very likely range is between 4 and 37 cm. The structural uncertainties in the method do not allow for an interpretation of any higher uncertainty percentiles. We provide projections for the five Antarctic regions and for each model and each scenario separately. The rate of sea level contribution is highest under the RCP8.5 scenario. The maximum within the 21st century of the median value is 4 cm per decade, with a likely range between 2 and 9 cm per decade and a very likely range between 1 and 14 cm per decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, has been a major contributor to global sea level rise over the past decades. Prior studies illustrated the critical role of ice shelf melt and iceberg calving based on cliff height in driving the retreat of Thwaites glacier. Here, we simulate its evolution with various calving laws and rates of frontal melt by the ocean in the absence of a buttressing ice shelf. Over the next century, we find that volume losses increase by 15–160% with a von Mises calving law compared to the case where the initial ice shelf is kept and the ice front is fixed at its current position, 10–20% with a buoyancy‐driven calving law, and 5–50% with frontal melt caused by ocean thermal forcing. Bed topography exerts the ultimate control on the evolution of Thwaites. In all simulations, once Thwaites Glacier retreats past the western subglacial ridge, the retreat becomes rapidly unstoppable. Key Points: Calving of grounded ice and frontal melt enhance the retreat of Thwaites Glacier compared to a retreat driven by ice shelf melt onlyThe retreat rate increases by 15% to 160% with von Mises calving, 10% to 20% with buoyancy‐driven calving, and 5% to 50% with frontal meltThwaites Glacier can collapse within a century if ocean forcing and calving retreat its grounding line past the western subglacial ridge [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basal melting at the bottom of Antarctic ice shelves is a major control on glacier dynamics, as it modulates the amount of buttressing that floating ice shelves exert onto the ice streams feeding them. Three-dimensional ocean circulation numerical models provide reliable estimates of basal melt rates but remain too computationally expensive for century-scale projections. Ice sheet modelers therefore routinely rely on simplified parameterizations based on either ice shelf depth or more sophisticated box models. However, existing parameterizations do not accurately resolve the complex spatial patterns of sub-shelf melt rates that have been observed over Antarctica's ice shelves, especially in the vicinity of the grounding line, where basal melting is one of the primary drivers of grounding line migration. In this study, we couple the Potsdam Ice-shelf Cavity mOdel PICO, to a buoyant plume melt rate parameterization to create PICOP, a novel basal melt rate parameterization that is easy to implement in transient ice sheet numerical models and produces a melt rate field that is in excellent agreement with the spatial distribution and magnitude of observations for several ocean basins. We test PICOP on the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica, Totten, and Moscow University ice shelves in East Antarctica and the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf and compare the results to PICO. We find that PICOP is able to reproduce inferred high melt rates beneath Pine Island, Thwaites, and Totten glaciers (on the order of 100 m yr -1) and removes the "banding" pattern observed in melt rates produced by PICO over the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf. PICOP resolves many of the issues contemporary basal melt rate parameterizations face and is therefore a valuable tool for those looking to make future projections of Antarctic glaciers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sea level contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet constitutes a large uncertainty in future sea level projections. Here we apply a linear response theory approach to 16 state-of-the-art ice sheet models to estimate the Antarctic ice sheet contribution from basal ice shelf melting within the 21st century. The purpose of this computation is to estimate the uncertainty that arises from large uncertainty in the external forcing that future warming may exert onto the ice sheet. While ice shelf melting is considered to be a major if not the largest perturbation of the ice sheet's flow into the ocean, the approach is neglecting a number of processes such as surface mass balance related contributions and mechanisms. In assuming linear response theory, we are able to capture complex temporal responses of the ice sheets, but we neglect any dampening or self-amplifying processes. This is particularly relevant in situations where an instability is dominating the ice loss. Results obtained here are thus relevant in particular wherever the ice loss is dominated by the forcing as opposed to an internal instability, for example in strong warming scenarios. In order to allow for comparison the methodology was chosen to be exactly the same as in an earlier study (Levermann et al., 2014), but with 16 instead of 5 ice sheet models. We include uncertainty in the atmospheric warming response to carbon emissions (full range of CMIP-5 climate model sensitivities), uncertainty in the oceanic transport to the Southern Ocean (obtained from the time-delayed and scaled oceanic subsurface warming in CMIP-5 models in relation to the global mean surface warming) and the observed range of responses of basal ice shelf melting to oceanic warming outside the ice shelf cavity. This uncertainty in basal ice shelf melting is then convoluted with the linear response functions of each of the 16 ice sheet models to obtain the ice flow response to the individual global warming path. The model median for the observational period from 1992 to 2017 is 9.6 mm with a likely range between 5.2 mm and 20.3 mm compared to the observed sea-level contribution from Antarctica of 7.4 mm with a standard deviation of 3.7 mm (Shepherd et al., 2018). For the so-called business-as-usual warming path, RCP-8.5, we obtain a median contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to global mean sea-level rise within the 21st century of 17 cm with a likely range (66-percentile around the mean) between 9 cm and 36 cm and a very likely range (90-percentile around the mean) between 6 cm and 59 cm. For the RCP-2.6 warming path which will keep the global mean temperature below two degrees of global warming and is thus consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement yields a median of 13 cm of global mean sea-level contribution. The likely range for the RCP-2.6 scenario is between 7 cm and 25 cm and the very likely range is between 5 cm and 39 cm. The structural uncertainties in the method do not allow an interpretation of any higher uncertainty percentiles. We provide projections for the five Antarctic regions and for each model and each scenario, separately. The rate of sea level contribution is highest under the RCP-8.5 scenario. The maximum within the 21st century of the median value is 4 cm per decade with a likely range between 2 cm/dec and 8 cm/dec and a very likely range between 1 cm/dec and 13 cm/dec. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antarctica and Greenland hold enough ice to raise sea level by more than 65m if both ice sheets were to melt completely. Predicting future ice sheet mass balance depends on our ability to model these ice sheets, which is limited by our current understanding of several key physical processes, such as iceberg calving. Large-scale ice flow models either ignore this process or represent it crudely. To model fractured zones, an important component of many calving models, continuum damage mechanics as well as linear fracture mechanics are commonly used. However, these methods have a large number of uncertainties when applied across the entire Antarctic continent because the models were typically tuned to match processes seen on particular ice shelves. Here we present an alternative, statistics-based method to model the most probable zones of the location of fractures and demonstrate our approach on all main ice shelf regions in Antarctica, including the Antarctic Peninsula. We can predict the location of observed fractures with an average success rate of 84% for grounded ice and 61% for floating ice and a mean overestimation error rate of 26% and 20 %, respectively. We found that Antarctic ice shelves can be classified into groups based on the factors that control fracture location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the sensitivity of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet model to environmental forcing and their use in projecting sea level or the SeaRise project. The study employs numerical models, Community Ice Sheet Model (CISM), and BEDMAP dataset. Results reveal a large range in projected contributions to sea-level change. It adds that the model indicate that Greenland is more sensitive than Antarctica to atmospheric changes in precipitation and temperature. Moreover, it discusses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's RCP8 scenario.

Accurately modeling the contribution of Greenland and Antarctica to sea level rise requires to solve partial differential equations at a high spatial resolution. It is important to test the scalability of existing ice sheet models in order to assess whether they are ready to take advantage of new cluster architectures. In this paper, we discuss the overall scaling of the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) applied to the Greenland ice sheet. The model setup used as benchmark problem comprises a variety of modules with different levels of complexity and computational demands. The core builds the so-called stress balance module, which uses the higher-order approximation (or Blatter-Pattyn) of the Stokes equations and a mesh of linear prismatic finite elements to compute the ice flow. We develop a detailed user-oriented, yet low-overhead performance instrumentation tailored to the requirements of earth system models and run scaling tests up to 6 144 MPI processes. The results show that the computation of the Greenland model scales overall well up to 3 072 MPI processes, but is eventually slowed down by matrix assembly, the output handling, and lower-dimensional problems that employ lower numbers of unknowns per MPI process. We also discuss improvements of the scaling and identify further improvements needed for climate research. The instrumented version of ISSM, thus, not only identifies potential performance bottlenecks that were not present at lower core counts but also provides the capability to continually monitor the performance of ISSM code basis. This is of long-term significance as the overall performance of ISSM model depends on the subtle interplay between algorithms, their implementation, underlying libraries, compilers, run-time systems and hardware characteristics, all of which are in a constant state of flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]