ACE CRC oceanographer Catia Domingues is among the authors on a Nature paper that examines the past six years of research into the impact of climate change on ice sheet contribution to sea level rise. The paper, “Ice-sheet mass balance and climate change”, is a synthesis of research in this field since the IPCC AR4 report. Scientists from 12 specialist centres across the world, led by Edward Hanna of the University of Sheffield, collectively studied advances in both observations and simulations of ice-sheet mass changes. The paper looks at the changes based on different observations. It details key improvements in ice sheet modelling and future challenges. It notes that Greenland ice sheets are losing mass at an increasing pace, but Antarctic loss is likely to be less than some recently-published estimates. Major uncertainties remain concerning the response to ocean forcing of the marine ice sheets and ice shelves. Dr Domingues’s role in the study was in the context of sea level rise, specifically the contribution of thermal expansion. Other contributions to sea level rise come from changes in ice sheets, glaciers and terrestrial storage. “My research is related to understanding of the ocean’s role in the Earth system in response to climate change, particularly in terms of upper-ocean heat uptake and its contribution to sea-level rise and what factors are driving these changes,” she said.

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