"Her findings have crucial importance for societies, ecology and economics," a statement by the University of Potsdam says. Along with her colleagues, Winkelmann showed that stronger snowfall increases future ice discharge from Antarctica. Global warming leads to more precipitation as warmer air holds more moisture – hence earlier research suggested the Antarctic ice sheet might grow under climate change. Now a study published in Nature shows that a lot of the ice gain due to increased snowfall is countered by an acceleration of ice-flow to the ocean.
Winkelmann presented her doctoral thesis at the University of Potsdam, supervised by Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, who is also Co-Chair of PIK's research domain Earth System Analysis.
Weblink to the study "Increased future ice discharge from Antarctica owing to higher snowfall". Nature [doi:10.1038/nature11616]
