Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4116
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4116
06 Oct 2025
 | 06 Oct 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Earth System Dynamics (ESD).

Chaotic fluctuations in Greenland outlet glaciers limit predictability of a future ice sheet collapse

Kolja Kypke, Marisa Montoya, Alexander Robinson, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Jan Swierczek-Jereczek, and Peter Ditlevsen

Abstract. The future evolution of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) depends on the intensity and the speed of climate change. By applying different rates of temperature change in a state-of-the-art comprehensive ice-sheet model coupled to a regional energy-moisture balance atmospheric model, oscillations in the total ice-sheet volume are found under warming magnitudes between 1.0 and 1.3 K above present-day temperatures. These are located in the northwestern drainage basin of the GrIS and are due to two ice streams which alternate between fast and slow basal velocities, manifesting in a build-up/surge variability. These ice streams interact due to their spatial proximity, resulting in irregular periodicity. The ice streams appear in a region where tipping of the entire GrIS begins, leading the oscillations to affect the tipping behaviour. These oscillations directly impact the time it takes before the ice sheet collapses at a given external forcing magnitude by hundreds of thousands of years for an ensemble of rates of forcing and initial conditions. These long tipping times are proposed to be due to chaotic transients. Our results suggest that ice-stream oscillations are a potential source of internal chaotic variability in ice sheets that affect tipping behaviour, thereby complicating prospects of anticipating such a tipping.

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Kolja Kypke, Marisa Montoya, Alexander Robinson, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Jan Swierczek-Jereczek, and Peter Ditlevsen

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Kolja Kypke, Marisa Montoya, Alexander Robinson, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Jan Swierczek-Jereczek, and Peter Ditlevsen
Kolja Kypke, Marisa Montoya, Alexander Robinson, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Jan Swierczek-Jereczek, and Peter Ditlevsen

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Short summary
Using a state-of-the-art ice sheet model, simulations of the future evolution of the Greenland ice sheet under moderate warming display chaotic variability, with the resulting large-scale loss of the ice sheet (also known as ’tipping’) being delayed by hundreds of thousands of years in some instances. The source of this variability is two nearby ice streams which oscillate in a build-up and surge pattern. This is the first study of such chaos in the Greenland ice sheet.
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