The coastal zone of the Antarctic Ice Sheet where this vast ice mass meets the Southern Ocean and warmer air masses, is fundamental to our understanding of the links between Antarctica and the global climate system. This coastal zone contains multiple tipping mechanisms that lead to large, rapid, and possibly irreversible changes in the coming centuries, which must be better understood to predict future sea-level rise. The Antarctic Ice Sheet constitutes the largest source of uncertainty in future sea-level projections. This uncertainty is mainly rooted in poorly known bed topography under the ice sheet in the coastal regions, which the IPCC identified as a critical knowledge gap. In 2021, Norway, Denmark, Italy, UK, and USA proposed SCAR to establish a new Action Group RINGS. RINGS is an international consortium to identify outstanding science, develop strategy for complete pan-Antarctic data coverage, and coordinate international efforts for airborne geophysical surveys all around Antarctica. Together with many other nations, India and Norway are working to carry out the first RINGS surveys in 2023-24 austral summer.
