Modeling the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets: New dynamic, thermodynamic, and isostatic insights

Numerical simulations indicate that the apparent long-term persistence and short-term variability of the Ross ice streams in West Antarctica are tied to regional thermal conditions and local basal lubrication. Modelling results suggest that the flux of latent heat in a throughgoing hydrologic system fed by melt beneath thick inland ice maintains the lubrication of the ice streams despite their tendency to freeze to the bed, and would allow additional thinning and grounding-line retreat. However, the efficiency of basal water distribution may be a constraint on the system. Because local thermal deficits promote basal freeze-on (especially on topographic highs), observed short-term variability is likely to persist.; Furthermore, simulations indicate that the ice streams have experienced only small deglacial thickness changes and are thinning more rapidly than their beds are rising isostatically. Thickness changes of $O$(100)m are modelled at the modern grounding line through the last glacial cycle. Coupled ice and bedrock models indicate isostatic rebound is raising the ice sheet at the modern grounding line faster than the rising sea level is submerging it. While, in and of itself, this could potentially lead to a grounding-line re-advance, ice flow is modelled to respond to recent changes in temperature, accumulation rate, and basal processes more rapidly than it does to bedrock-elevation and/or sea-level fluctuations.; Future projections of the Greenland ice sheet indicate a faster contribution to sea-level rise in a warming world than previously believed, based on numerical modelling using a parameterization of recent results showing surface-meltwater lubrication of Greenland ice flow (Zwally et al., 2002). Numerous simulations were conducted to test a wide range of parameter space linking surface melt with a new sliding law based on Zwally et al. data under different global warming scenarios. Comparisons to reconstructions generated with a traditional sliding parameterization illustrate an enhanced sensitivity of the ice sheet to surface warming resulting in higher ablation rates, additional thinning and retreat of the margin, and a reduction in ice volume leading to an increased contribution to global sea-level rise.