A history-matching analysis of the Antarctic Ice Sheet since the last interglacial – Part 2: Glacial isostatic adjustment

Abstract. We present a glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) analysis for a joint ice and GIA history matching of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) since the last interglacial. This was achieved using the Glacial Systems Model (GSM) – which includes a glaciological ice sheet model asynchronously coupled to a viscoelastic Earth model. A large ensemble of 9293 simulations was conducted using the GSM. The history matching was against the AntICE2 database, which includes observations of past relative sea level, present-day (PD) vertical land motion, past ice extent, past ice thickness, borehole temperature profiles, PD geometry and surface velocity (Lecavalier et al., 2023). The 38 ensemble parameters of the GSM were history matched using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling that in turn employed Bayesian Artificial Neural Network emulators. The implications on the evolution of the AIS are detailed in a companion paper which predominantly focuses on the ice sheet component (Lecavalier and Tarasov, 2025). The history-matching analysis identified simulations from the full ensemble that are Not-Ruled-Out-Yet (NROY) by the data. This yielded a NROY sub-ensemble of simulations consisting of 82-members that approximately bound past and present GIA and sea-level change given uncertainties across the entire glacial system. The NROY Antarctic ice sheet chronologies and associated Earth viscosity models represent the Antarctic component of the “GLAC3-A” set of global ice sheet chronologies over the last glacial cycle. The NROY set of ice sheet histories in combination with a wide range of Earth rheologies is evaluated against available data. Data-model comparisons are shown against a subset of the AntICE2 database which directly constrains relative sea-level (RSL) change and bedrock displacement. This displays significant spatial variability in Antarctic GIA. The limited number of observational constraints contributes to wide inferred RSL bounds with max/min ranges up to 150 m during the Holocene. Finally, estimates of PD rates of bedrock displacement with tolerance intervals are presented and compared against those from previously published inferences. These previous Antarctic GIA studies are key inputs for geodetic studies of the contemporary AIS mass balance. We demonstrate that, by adequately exploring glacial and rheological uncertainties against a comprehensive database, past studies have underestimated Antarctic GIA uncertainties across large sectors, while other sectors are now more narrowly constrained. This history matching presents meaningful Antarctic GIA bounds of the rate of PD bedrock displacement with direct implications on mass balance estimates of the PD AIS.