Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 23, 2025

Simulating Impacts of Ice Storms on Forest Ecosystems
Published on: June 30, 2020
Competing climate feedbacks of ice sheet freshwater discharge in a warming world
Dawei Li1,2,3, Robert M DeConto4, David Pollard4,5
1Key Laboratory of Polar Ecosystem and Climate Change, Ministry of Education, and School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, China. lidavvei@sjtu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Freshwater discharge from ice sheets induces surface atmospheric cooling and subsurface ocean warming, which are associated with negative and positive feedbacks respectively. However, uncertainties persist regarding these feedbacks' relative strength and combined effect. Here we assess associated feedbacks in a coupled ice sheet-climate model, and show that for the Antarctic Ice Sheet the positive feedback dominates in moderate future warming scenarios and in the early stage of ice sheet retreat, but is overwhelmed by the negative feedback in intensive warming scenarios when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet undergoes catastrophic collapse. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is affected by freshwater discharge from both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets and, as an interhemispheric teleconnection bridge, exacerbates the opposing ice sheet's retreat via the Bipolar Seesaw. These results highlight the crucial role of ice sheet-climate interactions via freshwater flux in future ice sheet retreat and associated sea-level rise.
Related Concept Videos
Global Climate Change
The Water Cycle
What is Climate?
States of Water
Water freezes when the intermolecular forces are greater than the kinetic energy. Unlike most other substances, water is less dense in its solid state than in its liquid state. This is because each water molecule can form...
Second Law of Thermodynamics
Membrane Fluidity

