Climate Warming in West Antarctica

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

The Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica are focus areas for climate change. With up to several meters of sea level rise potentially resulting from melting of this region in the coming decades to centuries, the climate trajectory of this region is clearly of global relevance. If surface, or ocean basal melting becomes a significant component of the surface mass balance, it could contribute to the weakening of fringing ice shelves with a resulting marked acceleration of currently grounded ice stream discharging into the Southern Ocean. Thus, better understanding of the climate warming in West Antarctica has strong scientific and societal justification. The project will combine existing temperature records from manned and automatic weather stations, satellite data, ERA interim reanalysis, and the perspective provided by recent (~200) yr ice core (borehole) data reconstructed into the WRF model to yield high resolution (10km) surface temperature history throughout the West Antarctic Ice sheet (WAIS). This will help resolve recent disagreement on the extent of warming in the WAIS region. Additional comparisons of the climate reconstructions with and without the influences of satellite records on the reconstructions will also be investigated.