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Strong effects of tropical ice-sheet coverage and thickness on the hard snowball Earth bifurcation point

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Abstract

The hard snowball Earth bifurcation point is determined by the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (pCO2) below which complete glaciation of the planet would occur. In previous studies, the bifurcation point was determined based on the assumption that the extent of continental glaciation could be neglected and the results thereby obtained suggested that very low values of pCO2 would be required (~100 ppmv). Here, we deduce the upper bound on the bifurcation point using the coupled atmosphere–ocean climate model of the NCAR that is referred to as the Community Climate System Model version 3 by assuming that the continents are fully covered by ice sheets prior to executing the transition into the hard snowball state. The thickness of the ice sheet is assumed to be that obtained by an ice-sheet model coupled to an energy balance model for a soft snowball Earth. We find that the hard snowball Earth bifurcation point is in the ranges of 600–630 and 300–320 ppmv for the 720 and 570 Ma continental configurations, respectively. These critical points are between 10 and 3 times higher than their respective values when ice sheets are completely neglected. We also find that when the ice sheets are thinner than those assumed above, the climate is colder and the bifurcation point is larger. The key process that causes the excess cooling when continental ice sheets are thin is shown to be associated with the fact that atmospheric heat transport from the adjacent oceans to the ice sheet-covered continents is enhanced in such conditions. Feedbacks from sea-ice expansion and reduced water vapor concentration further cool the oceanic regions strongly.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Z.X. Li at Curtin University of Australia and W.T. Hyde for providing the continental boundary conditions that were used to construct the 720 and 570 Ma land–ocean masks, respectively. We are grateful to the three anonymous reviewers whose suggestions have improved both the presentation and the science content of the paper. The CCSM3 simulations were performed on the SciNet facility at the University of Toronto, which is a component of the Compute Canada HPC platform, while the CAM3 simulations were performed on the supercomputer at the LaCOAS facility of Peking University. Y. Liu is supported by the Startup Fund of the Ministry of Education of China. The research of WRP at the University of Toronto is supported by NSERC Discovery Grant A9627.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yonggang Liu, Jun Yang & Yuwei Wang

  2. Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A7, Canada

    W. Richard Peltier & Guido Vettoretti

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  1. Yonggang Liu
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Correspondence to Yonggang Liu.

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Liu, Y., Peltier, W.R., Yang, J. et al. Strong effects of tropical ice-sheet coverage and thickness on the hard snowball Earth bifurcation point. Clim Dyn 48, 3459–3474 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3278-1

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