East Antarctic Ice Sheet
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| East Antarctic Ice Sheet | |
|---|---|
 Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica team · Public domain · source | |
| Name | East Antarctic Ice Sheet |
| Type | Ice sheet |
| Location | Antarctica |
| Area | ~10 million km² |
| Thickness | up to ~4,000 m |
| Status | Variable; long-term stability with regional change |
East Antarctic Ice Sheet The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest continental ice mass on Earth, covering much of Antarctica and interacting with features such as the Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctic Peninsula, Ross Ice Shelf, Weddell Sea and surrounding ocean basins like the Southern Ocean. Its dynamics influence global systems including sea level rise, climate change, paleoclimatology, ocean circulation, and international governance under frameworks like the Antarctic Treaty System and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. Scientific programs from institutions such as the British Antarctic Survey, United States Geological Survey, National Science Foundation (United States), Australian Antarctic Division, and Chinese Antarctic Program conduct research using platforms developed by agencies like NASA, European Space Agency, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Geography and extent
The ice sheet spans much of eastern Antarctica between the Transantarctic Mountains and the South Pole, adjoining regions including Queen Maud Land, Wilkes Land, Victoria Land, Enderby Land, Marie Byrd Land, and the Ronne Ice Shelf sector, and influencing coastal features such as the Shackleton Ice Shelf, Amery Ice Shelf, and Davis Sea. Major subglacial topography beneath it includes the Vostok Subglacial Highlands, Aurora Subglacial Basin, and the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, while surface divide locations link to stations like Vostok Station, Mawson Station, Dumont d'Urville Station, Concordia Station, and McMurdo Station. The ice sheet’s area and elevation patterns are mapped using assets such as ICESat, CryoSat-2, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, and airborne campaigns by Operation IceBridge.
Ice structure and composition
Ice stratigraphy in East Antarctica records signals from events tied to Last Glacial Maximum, Eemian interglacial, and ancient greenhouse intervals, sampled in cores from sites like EPICA, Dome C, Dome Fuji, Dome A, and Law Dome. Internal layering reveals folding, basal sliding, and englacial anisotropy influenced by bedrock lithology exposed in regions like Transantarctic Mountains, and by heat flux variations associated with cratons such as the Wilkes Land Craton and East Antarctic Shield. Chemical and isotopic composition analyses involve comparisons to records from Greenland ice sheet cores, NGRIP, GRIP, and marine cores from the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean sectors, with tracers measured by laboratories at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, and British Antarctic Survey.
Climate interactions and mass balance
Mass balance of the ice sheet results from accumulation influenced by atmospheric circulation patterns like the Southern Annular Mode, the Antarctic Oscillation, and teleconnections with El Niño–Southern Oscillation, while ablation and dynamic loss interact with oceanic forcing from the Circumpolar Deep Water and processes observed in the Amundsen Sea Embayment. Recent satellite syntheses from GRACE, ICESat-2, Sentinel-1, and airborne radar surveys show spatial heterogeneity with sectors exhibiting relative stability and others showing thinning comparable to patterns identified in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Greenland ice sheet. Climate model projections developed by groups involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and centers such as Met Office Hadley Centre, NOAA, and CSIRO evaluate responses to greenhouse forcing scenarios from expeditions funded by agencies including the EU Horizon programs and national science foundations.
Geological history and evolution
The evolution of the ice sheet is reconstructed from seismic profiles, sediment cores from the Weddell Sea and Ross Sea, and tectonic syntheses linking breakup of Gondwana, Mesozoic rifting near East Africa Rift System analogs, and the opening of the Southern Ocean and Tasmanian Gateway. Episodes of expansion and retreat correlate with global events like the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, Miocene Climatic Optimum, and Pleistocene glacial cycles recorded at sites tied to the International Ocean Discovery Program and paleomagnetic records housed at institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and Australian National University. Subglacial erosion and sedimentation reflect interactions with orogenic provinces including the Prince Charles Mountains and the Beacon Supergroup exposures.
Sea level contributions and potential collapse
Stability of large basins such as the Wilkes Subglacial Basin and Aurora Basin controls potential committed sea level rise analogous to concerns previously raised for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and paleoclimatic analogs like the Paleogene sea-level events. Estimates by authors contributing to IPCC assessments and studies from University of Cambridge, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and Columbia University quantify contributions under high-emission scenarios, while numerical models incorporating grounding-line migration, marine ice sheet instability, and sub-shelf melt parameters are benchmarked against observations from Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier studies to assess thresholds for irreversible retreat.
Research methods and monitoring
Monitoring employs satellites such as Landsat, MODIS, Sentinel-2, CryoSat-2, and radar altimetry alongside gravimetry from GRACE-FO, airborne radar from Operation IceBridge, seismic surveys by teams from GEUS and USAP, and drilling projects coordinated by Antarctic Research Centre groups. Modeling uses frameworks from centers like NCAR, MPI for Meteorology, GFDL, and university groups at Columbia University, University of Washington, and University of Colorado Boulder integrating field campaigns at stations including Pole of Inaccessibility camp, Belgrano II Base, and Scott Base.
Environmental and policy implications
Findings inform international policy under the Antarctic Treaty System, Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, and contribute to global assessments by the IPCC and advisory bodies to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and national agencies like NOAA, UK Met Office, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and NASA. Conservation and management intersect with logistics providers such as COMNAP, research funders like NSF and DFG, and stakeholders in sea-level planning for coastal megacities such as New York City, Mumbai, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Bangkok.