Critical slowing down suggests that the western Greenland Ice Sheet is close to a tipping point.

ABSTRACT: The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is a potentially unstable component of the Earth system and may exhibit a critical transition under ongoing global warming. Mass reductions of the GrIS have substantial impacts on global sea level and the speed of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, due to the additional freshwater caused by increased meltwater runoff into the northern Atlantic. The stability of the GrIS depends crucially on the positive melt-elevation feedback (MEF), by which melt rates increase as the overall ice sheet height decreases under rising temperatures. Melting rates across Greenland have accelerated nonlinearly in recent decades, and models predict a critical temperature threshold beyond which the current ice sheet state is not maintainable. Here, we investigate long-

SUBMITTER: Boers N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8166178 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature