Climate response to increasing Antarctic iceberg and ice shelf melt

Journal of Climate (2020)

Mass loss from the Antarctic continent is increasing; however, climate models either assume a constant mass loss rate or that snowfall will maintain equilibrium.

The coupled atmosphere–land–ocean–sea ice model, HadGEM3-GC3.1, includes a realistic spatial distribution of coastal melt fluxes, a new ice shelf cavity parameterization, and iceberg representation. This configuration makes it appropriate to revisit how increasing melt fluxes influence ocean and sea ice and to assess whether responses to melt from ice shelves and icebergs are distinguishable.

We show that increasing meltwater fluxes drive sea ice increases and, for increasing ice shelf melt, reduce Antarctic Bottom Water formation.