Limited sensitivity of Antarctic GIA mass change estimates to lateral viscosity variations

Abstract

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) has revealed spatiotemporal mass changes in the Antarctic Ice Sheet. However, GRACE data must be corrected for the gravity changes due to glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Here we investigate the sensitivity of GIA-induced gravity changes in Antarctica to the lithospheric thickness and upper mantle viscosity using a one-dimensional (1-D) model that assumes a radially varying Earth structure. The sensitivity is assessed using several Antarctic ice-history models that have been widely used to correct GRACE data. The results indicate a trade-off between lithospheric thickness and upper mantle viscosity in evaluating the Antarctic GIA correction. This trade-off exists for all ice-history models; however, the reason for the trade-off differs among models. Furthermore, since there is a sharp contrast in the Earth structure between West and East Antarctica, the adopted ice histories are separated into West and East Antarctic components to examine their contributions to the Antarctic GIA correction. We consider 1-D Earth structures that are averaged from the seismically derived three-dimensional Earth structure for West and East Antarctica. These results indicate that the contributions of the East and West Antarctic loads do not significantly affect the GIA corrections for the West and East Antarctic regions, respectively, and that the trade-off between lithospheric thickness and upper mantle viscosity results in minimal divergence in the assessment of the Antarctic GIA correction between the averaged Earth models of West and East Antarctica. Therefore, the contrast in Earth structure beneath Antarctica may have a limited effect on the ice-mass change estimates for the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet.