Southern Ocean warming and Antarctic ice shelf melting in conditions plausible by late 23rd century in a high-end scenario

Abstract

How much Antarctic ice shelf basal melt rates can increase in response to global warming remains an open question. Here we describe the response of the Southern Ocean and ice shelf cavities to an abrupt change to high-end atmospheric conditions plausible by the late 23rd century under the SSP5-8.5 scenario. To achieve this objective, we first present and evaluate a new 0.25∘ global configuration of the NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean NEMO System Team, 2019) ocean and sea ice model. Our present-day simulations demonstrate good agreement with observational data for key variables such as temperature, salinity, and ice shelf melt rates, despite the remaining difficulties to simulate the interannual variability in the Amundsen Sea. The ocean response to the high-end atmospheric perturbation includes a strengthening and extension of the Ross and Weddell gyres and a quasi-disappearance of sea ice, with a subsequent decrease in production of High Salinity Shelf Water and increased intrusion of warmer water onto the continental shelves favoured by changes in baroclinic currents at the shelf break. We propose to classify the perturbed continental shelf as a “warm–fresh shelf”. This induces a substantial increase in ice shelf basal melt rates, particularly in the coldest seas, with a total basal mass loss rising from 1180 to 15 700 Gt yr−1 and an Antarctica averaged melt rate increasing from 0.8 to 10.6 m yr−1. In the perturbed simulation, most ice shelves around Antarctica experience conditions that are currently found in the Amundsen Sea, while the Amundsen Sea warms by 2 ∘C. These idealised projections can be used as a base to calibrate basal melt parameterisations used in long-term ice sheet projections.