initMIP-Antarctica: An ice sheet model initialization experiment of ISMIP6

Ice sheet numerical modeling is an important tool to estimate the dynamic contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise over the coming centuries. The influence of initial conditions on ice sheet model simulations, however, is still unclear. To better understand this influence, an initial state intercomparison exercise (initMIP) has been developed to compare, evaluate, and improve initialization procedures and estimate their impact on century-scale simulations. initMlP is the first set of experiments of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6), which is the primary Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) activity focusing on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Following initMlP-Greenland, initMlP-Antarctica has been designed to explore uncertainties associated with model initialization and spin-up and to evaluate the impact of changes in external forcings. Starting from the state of the Antarctic ice sheet at the end of the initialization procedure, three forward experiments are each run for 100 years: a control run, a run with a surface mass balance anomaly, and a run with a basal melting anomaly beneath floating ice. This study presents the results of initMlP-Antarctica from 25 simulations performed by 16 international modeling groups. The submitted results use different initial conditions and initialization methods, as well as ice flow model parameters and reference external forcings. We find 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.

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Author 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, Gunter
Lipscomb, William
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.
Shepherd, A.
Sun, S.
Sutter, J.
Van Breedam, J.
van de Wal, R. S. W.
Winkelmann, R.
Zhang, T.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2019-05-14T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-11T19:29:02.153154
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:22525
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation 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, Gunter, Lipscomb, William, 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., Shepherd, A., Sun, S., Sutter, J., Van Breedam, J., van de Wal, R. S. W., Winkelmann, R., Zhang, T.. (2019). initMIP-Antarctica: An ice sheet model initialization experiment of ISMIP6. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7zw1q0v. Accessed 05 November 2025.

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