English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Bathymetry-constrained warm-mode melt estimates derived from analysing Oceanic Gateways in Antarctica

Authors
/persons/resource/lena.nicola

Nicola,  Lena
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Ronja.Reese

Reese,  Ronja
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/kreuzer

Kreuzer,  Moritz
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Torsten.Albrecht

Albrecht,  Torsten
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Ricarda.Winkelmann

Winkelmann,  Ricarda
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

External Ressource
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PIKpublic
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Nicola, L., Reese, R., Kreuzer, M., Albrecht, T., Winkelmann, R. (in press): Bathymetry-constrained warm-mode melt estimates derived from analysing Oceanic Gateways in Antarctica. - The Cryosphere.


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_32120
Abstract
Melting underneath the floating ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic continent is a key process for the stability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and therefore its current and future mass loss. Troughs and sills on the continental shelf play a crucial role in modulating sub-shelf melt rates, as they can allow or block the access of relatively warm, modified Circumpolar Deep Water to ice-shelf cavities. Here we identify potential oceanic gateways that could allow the access of warm water masses to Antarctic grounding lines based on critical access depths inferred from high-resolution bathymetry data. We analyse the properties of water masses that are currently present in front of the ice shelf and that might intrude into the respective ice-shelf cavities in the future. We use the ice-shelf cavity model PICO to estimate an upper limit of melt rate changes in case all warm water masses up to a certain depth level gain access to the cavities. We find that melt rates could increase in all regions at least by a factor of 2. Depending on the presence or absence of an oceanic gateway and the current ice-shelf melt conditions we find up to 200-fold larger melt rates. The identification of oceanic gateways is thus valuable for assessing the potential of ice-shelf cavities to switch from a 'cold' to a 'warm' state, which could result in widespread ice loss from Antarctica.