ANR DELTA

With global warming underway, the contribution of the East Antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise over the next few centuries is largely unknown and has been identified as a critical knowledge gap by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In this context, a major threshold effect for recession is the margins of large lowland areas such as the Wilkes Basin.
Understanding past deglaciation phases since the Last Glacial Maximum (~23 ka BP) provides a basis for understanding the dynamic behaviour of the SIEA and better anticipating its future evolution using numerical models.

In this project, a collaboration between geologists, glaciologists and modellers aims to study the dynamic response of the EAIS to global warming in an area bordering the Wilkes Basin, in Terre Adélie. The data obtained will form the basis for innovative modelling of fluctuations in the EAIS, its sensitivity to global warming and its contribution to sea-level rise.