A paper published in The Cryosphere presents the results of initMIP-Antarctica from 25 ice sheet simulations performed by 16 international modeling groups, including IGE. The submitted results use different initial conditions and initialization methods, as well as ice flow model parameters and reference external forcings.

The comparison shows a good agreement among model responses to the surface mass balance anomaly but large variations in responses to the basal melting anomaly. These variations can be attributed to differences in the extent of ice shelves and their upstream tributaries, the numerical treatment of grounding line, and the initial ocean conditions applied, suggesting that ongoing efforts to better represent ice shelves in continental-scale models should continue.

Antarctic contribution to sea level (mm of sea level equivalent). (a) control experiment, (b) difference between surface-mass-balance anomaly and control experiments, and (c) difference between basal-mass-balance anomaly and control experiments

Reference

Seroussi, H., Nowicki, S., Simon, E., Abe-Ouchi, A., Albrecht, T., Brondex, J., Cornford, S., Dumas, C., Gillet-Chaulet, F., Goelzer, H., Golledge, N. R., Gregory, J. M., Greve, R., Hoffman, M. J., Humbert, A., Huybrechts, P., Kleiner, T., Larour, E., Leguy, G., Lipscomb, W. H., Lowry, D., Mengel, M., Morlighem, M., Pattyn, F., Payne, A. J., Pollard, D., Price, S. F., Quiquet, A., Reerink, T. J., Reese, R., Rodehacke, C. B., Schlegel, N.-J., Shepherd, A., Sun, S., Sutter, J., Van Breedam, J., van de Wal, R. S. W., Winkelmann, R., and Zhang, T. (2019). initMIP-Antarctica: an ice sheet model initialization experiment of ISMIP6, The Cryosphere, 13, 1441–1471, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1441-2019.