Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Barletta, Valentina R
• Bevis, Michael
• Smith, Benjamin E
• Wilson, Terry
• Brown, Abel
• Bordoni, Andrea
• Willis, Michael
• Khan, Shfaqat Abbas
• Rovira-Navarro, Marc
• Dalziel, Ian
• Smalley, Jr, Robert
• Kendrick, Eric
• Konfal, Stephanie
• Caccamise, 2nd, Dana J
• Aster, Richard C
• Nyblade, Andy
• Wiens, Douglas A

Titel

Observed rapid bedrock uplift in Amundsen Sea Embayment promotes ice-sheet stability

Ist Teil von

• Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 2018-06, Vol.360 (6395), p.1335-1339

Ort / Verlag

United States: The American Association for the Advancement of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The marine portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) in the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) accounts for one-fourth of the cryospheric contribution to global sea-level rise and is vulnerable to catastrophic collapse. The bedrock response to ice mass loss, glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), was thought to occur on a time scale of 10,000 years. We used new GPS measurements, which show a rapid (41 millimeters per year) uplift of the ASE, to estimate the viscosity of the mantle underneath. We found a much lower viscosity (4 × 10 pascal-second) than global average, and this shortens the GIA response time scale from tens to hundreds of years. Our finding requires an upward revision of ice mass loss from gravity data of 10% and increases the potential stability of the WAIS against catastrophic collapse.