Characterizing bedrock topography and basal conditions in critical coastal regions of the Antarctic ice sheet within the RINGS international effort

Comprenhending Antarctic coastal regions is fundamental to our understanding of the dynamic responses of the Antarctic ice sheet to ocean and climate warming.. These coastal regions contain multiple potential tipping points for the Antarctic Ice Sheet in a warming world, which must be better understood to predict the future magnitude and rates of global sea-level rise in a more robust fashion.The Antarctic Ice Sheet constitutes the largest uncertainty in future sea-level projections. 50 years of aereogeophysical observations have led to significant advances in our knowledge of bed topography and basal conditions and itheir influence on ice sheet dynamics. primarily in the interior of Antarctica Howevver, the critical coastal regions where the West and East Antarctic ice sheets meet the ocean and that are the sites of current and future change remain in many places insufficiently surveyed and understood.Here we present a new international initiative RINGS that aims to provide the first comprehensive pan-Antarctic wide coverage of the Antarctic coast mainly via new coordinated aerogeophysical campaigns. Together with an overview of the current multidisciplinary understanding of the Antarctic coastal regions, we present a new ensemble analysis of published datasets to present data coverage and knowledge gaps, and their regional distribution is discussed in the context of present ice-sheet dynamics and potential future change Finally, we identify outstanding science priorities and discuss protocols for new airborne surveys to develop a novel comprehensive dataset of Antarctic grounding zones (the main RING) and both landward and seaward RINGS all-around Antarctica.
The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023)