Chris Forest (lead), David Pollard, Klaus Keller, Murali Haran, Patrick Applegate, Won Chang, Richard Alley, James Kasting

The Greenland Ice Sheet and the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may retreat and contribute large and significant increases to sea level rise over the next few centuries or millennia. However, the rate and eventual magnitude of the retreat of the ice sheets and their threshold behaviors are highly uncertain. This uncertainty will affect estimates of sea level rise and the resulting impacts on coastal environments and infrastructure. This project will develop two research areas. First, we will apply mechanistically motivated and computationally efficient ice sheet models that are computationally efficient enough to carry out large ensembles of simulations spanning important model parameters. The ensembles will produce probabilistic information relevant to sea level rise contributions from these ice sheets. The results are an important input to quantitative assessment of the key uncertainties and probable ranges of the future ice sheet response for use in sea level rise impacts analyses. Second, we will develop probabilistic storm surge information based on our estimates of the ice sheet contributions to sea level change. The combination of changes in expected storm patterns and the altered geoid should provide a significant interaction for storm surge likelihoods.