Antarctic Winds May Cause Sea Levels to Rise as the Climate Changes

It turns out that winds circling the Antarctic may have a bigger role to play in sea level rise than scientists once thought. Projected changes in these winds could actually accelerate sea level rise.

The researchers used super computers in order to examine the impacts of changing winds on currents around the Antarctic coastline. Previous global models actually did not adequately capture these currents and the structure of the water temperature at greater depths. This new and more detailed approach, though, showed that Antarctic coastal winds may be a huge part of sea level rise.

"When we included projected Antarctic wind shifts in a detailed global ocean model, we found water up to 4 degrees C warmer than current temperatures rose up to meet the base of Antarctic ice shelves," said Paul Spence, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The sub-surface warming revealed in this research is on average twice as large as previously estimated with almost all of coastal Antarctica affected. This relatively warm water provides a huge reservoir of melt potential right near the grounding lines of ice shelves around Antarctica. It could lead to a massive increase in the rate of ice sheet melt, with direct consequences for global sea level rise."

The new research may help explain a number of sudden and unexplained increases in global sea levels that occurred in the geological past. Not only that, but it could also allow scientists to understand what we might expect in the future.

"It is very plausible that the mechanism revealed by this research will push parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet beyond a point of no return," said Axel Timmerman, an IPCC lead author who has seen the new paper. "This work suggests the Antarctic ice sheets may be less stable to future climate change than previously assumed."

The findings are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.