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Overshooting the critical threshold for the Greenland ice sheet
Nils Bochow1,2,3, Anna Poltronieri4, Alexander Robinson5,6,7
1Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway. nils.bochow@uit.no.
Nature
|October 18, 2023
Summary
Global warming threatens the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) with irreversible melting and sea-level rise. Limiting peak warming and cooling rapidly can mitigate GrIS loss, but even temporary overshoots cause significant sea-level rise.
Area of Science:
- Climate Science
- Glaciology
- Earth System Science
Background:
- Anthropogenic global warming poses a severe threat to the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS), potentially causing significant global sea-level rise (SLR).
- Arctic amplification and positive feedback mechanisms may lead to self-sustained melting of the GrIS, which exists in multiple stable states.
- Critical transitions and hysteresis effects are expected as global mean temperature (GMT) crosses specific thresholds.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of different global mean temperature (GMT) overshoot scenarios on Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) stability.
- To determine the critical temperature thresholds for abrupt GrIS loss under various warming and cooling rates.
- To assess the potential for mitigating GrIS loss through rapid temperature reduction after exceeding warming targets.
Main Methods:
- Utilized two independent ice-sheet models to simulate various overshoot scenarios.
- Analyzed the effects of different peak and convergence temperatures on GrIS stability.
- Investigated a broad range of warming and subsequent cooling rates.
Main Results:
- Identified a critical GMT threshold between 1.7°C and 2.3°C above preindustrial levels for abrupt GrIS loss.
- Demonstrated that substantial GrIS loss can be mitigated if GMT is reduced to below 1.5°C within centuries, even after exceeding 6°C.
- Showed that temporary GMT overshoots above the threshold, without transitioning to a new ice-sheet state, can still cause several meters of peak sea-level rise.
Conclusions:
- The maximum GMT reached and the duration of temperature overshoots are critical factors for GrIS stability.
- Rapid cooling following temperature overshoots is crucial for mitigating irreversible GrIS melt and limiting future sea-level rise.
- Even transiently exceeding critical warming thresholds carries significant risks for accelerated sea-level rise due to ice sheet melt.
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