A high-end sea level rise probabilistic projection including rapid Antarctic ice sheet mass loss. (3rd April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Le Bars, Dewi; Drijfhout, Sybren; de Vries, Hylke
• Is Part Of: Environmental research letters. Volume 12:Number 4(2017:Apr.)
• Publication Date: 2017-04-03
• Subjects: sea level rise -- antarctica -- probabilistic projections -- extreme pathways -- high-end projections; Environmental sciences -- Periodicals; Human ecology -- Research -- Periodicals; Environmental health -- Periodicals; 333.7
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa6512
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1748-9326

Abstract

Abstract: The potential for break-up of Antarctic ice shelves by hydrofracturing and following ice cliff instability might be important for future ice dynamics. One recent study suggests that the Antarctic ice sheet could lose a lot more mass during the 21st century than previously thought. This increased mass-loss is found to strongly depend on the emission scenario and thereby on global temperature change. We investigate the impact of this new information on high-end global sea level rise projections by developing a probabilistic process-based method. It is shown that uncertainties in the projections increase when including the temperature dependence of Antarctic mass loss and the uncertainty in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model ensemble. Including these new uncertainties we provide probability density functions for the high-end distribution of total global mean sea level in 2100 conditional on emission scenario. These projections provide a probabilistic context to previous extreme sea level scenarios developed for adaptation purposes.