<p>Ice in Antarctica has been experiencing dramatic changes in the last decades. These variations have consequences in terms of sea level, which could have an impact on human societies and life on the planet in the future. The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) could become the main contributor to sea-level rise in the coming centuries, but there is a great uncertainty associated with its contribution, which is due in part to the complexity of the coupled ice-ocean processes. In this study we investigate the contribution of the AIS to sea-level rise in the coming centuries in the context of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6), but covering a range beyond 2100, using the higher-order ice-sheet model Yelmo. We test the sensitivity of the model&#160; to basal melting parameters using several forcings and scenarios for the atmosphere and ocean, obtained from different GCM models. The results show a strong&#160; dependency on variations of the parameter values of the basal melting laws and also on the forcing that is chosen. Higher values of the heat exchange velocity between ice and ocean lead to higher sea-level rise, varying the contribution depending on the forcing. Ice-ocean interactions therefore can be expected to contribute significantly to the uncertainty associated with the future evolution of the AIS.</p> <p>&#160;</p>
<p>Sea-level rise represents one of the biggest threats that humankind has to face in the<br>coming centuries. Antarctica hosts today's largest ice sheet on Earth, the Antarctic Ice Sheet<br>(AIS). In the mid-long term, the AIS could become the main contributor to sea-level rise,<br>especially as a result of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) being marine-based and<br>therefore strongly exposed to the ocean. Nonetheless, there is substantial uncertainty in the<br>future contribution of the AIS to sea-level rise, mainly as a result of poor understanding of<br>physical processes, such as ice-sheet dynamics or ice-ocean interactions. In order to<br>overcome the problem of different Antarctic sea-level projections with different experimental<br>setups, the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 was organized (ISMIP6).<br>The first results showed that at higher emission scenarios the AIS melts more. Nonetheless,<br>the WAIS response to this warming varies widely among the models. We herein investigate<br>the contribution of the higher-order ice-sheet model Yelmo. Results<br>with Yelmo show a strong sensitivity of the AIS contribution to sea-level rise to the calibration<br>of the basal-melting parametrization, particularly remarkable in the WAIS, but being in the<br>range of the results reached by other ice-sheets models in the context of the ISMIP6<br>intercomparison project.</p>
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