The Southern Ocean acts as a protective barrier for the Antarctic Ice Sheet. This video describes how future changes in winds, sea ice and snowfall (can) break this protective barrier, allowing for warmer waters to flow beneath Antarctic ice shelves. Warmer water masses increase the melting of the ice shelves from below causing ice thinning. The ice flow can then accelerate, resulting in increased ice loss and global sea level rise. In order to study these processes and feedbacks, TiPACCs scientists joined forces and made a lot of progress in combining their modelling (ocean and ice sheet) tools…

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This is the fourth video in a series on Antarctic tipping points. See previous videos.