This sea ice belt, which is frozen ocean water and grows as a protective fringe around Antarctica’s ice sheets, is susceptible to ocean warming as greenhouse gases continue to rise.
Work by PhD student Molly Patterson, under the supervision of Dr Robert McKay and Professor Tim Naish from Victoria’s Antarctic Research Centre, shows that the stability of the world’s largest ice sheet is influenced by the presence of a sea ice belt in the Southern Ocean.
Dr McKay says the research contributes to a long-standing ice-age mystery, resolving how exactly the Earth’s orbit around the sun contributes to natural ice-age cycles.
“It sheds new light on how natural climate processes can dramatically amplify ice sheet responses to relatively small changes in energy that were provided by changes in Earth’s orbit.
“As we have seen repeatedly in geological records, these ice sheets are highly sensitive to changes in the energy they recieve, and are capable of driving global sea level changes by many tens of metres.”
Current emissions of large quantities of greenhouse gases provide a far greater amount of energy than the orbits alone would, and at an unprecedented rate, says Dr McKay.
“Changes from global warming and any future reduction of the ice belt may have profound effects on the stability of the giant East Antarctic ice sheet, because its major parts sit below present day sea level and if melted would total more than 20 metres of increased sea level.”
The researchers travelled to a remote region offshore from the East Antarctic ice sheet and examined iceberg remains from between 2.2 and 4.3 million years ago.
The research, published recently by the Nature Geoscience (http://bit.ly/1tANqH4), shows that prior to 2.5 million years ago, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were at the same high level that they are today, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet melt was widespread.
In this higher carbon dioxide world, the Southern Ocean was too warm to support a large protective sea ice belt during the summer months, and this allowed wind-driven ocean currents to penetrate deep into the south and melt the marine margins of the East Antarctic ice sheets.
Due to these factors, Dr McKay says there is strong potential for widespread ice loss and sea level rise worldwide in the coming centuries, unless carbon dioxide levels are significantly reduced.