Paper presented at the IGS Symposium on Sea Ice and Its Interactions with the Ocean, Atmosphere and Biosphere

• Main Authors: June Fairbanks Alaska, Mark R. Drinkwater, Xiang Liu, Sabine Harms
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: Joinville; Joinville Island; Larsen Ice Shelf; Riiser-Larsen; Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Shelf; Riiser Larsen Ice Shelf; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.17.474; http://polar.jpl.nasa.gov/Publications/Drink+Xiang_Ann_Glaciol_v33_2001.pdf

Several years of daily microwave satellite ice-drift are combined with moored Upward Looking Sonar (ULS) ice-drafts into an ice volume flux record at points along a flux gate across the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Monthly ice transport varies at the mooring locations from a maximum export of 0.4 m 3 s 4 near Joinville Island to-0.4 m3s 4 imported along the Fimbul and Riiser Larsen ice shelf margins. Winter peaks are observed at each end of the flux gate, where high concentrations of deformed ice are advected in and out of the basin along the coastline. The central gyre in contrast exhibits negligible seasonality and much smaller volume transports. During the period of overlat>pingULS operation, the mean monthly integrated ice export west of the gyre center is 59 x 103/113 s' , and the import in the East Wind Drift is-17 x 103 m s '1. ULS data are compared with ERS satellite observations of radar backscatter to obtain an empirical relationship between ice thickness and the rate of change of backscatter with incidence angle. Resulting proxy ice-thickness data are combined with SSM/I-derived ice velocities to obtain seasonally varying estimates of net ice volume flux from 1992-98. Significant interannual variability is observed in ice volume flux expressed as freshwater transport. A maximum annual mean of 0.054 Sv is observed in 1992 with a minimum of 0.015 Sv in 1996. A six-year monthly mean transport of 0.032 Sv is observed. Maximum seasonal ice export occurs in July 1992 with a minimum in November 1996. The ten-year mean area flux is 30 x 103 m 2 s '1. Interannual variations in net volume flux closely follow variations in area flux with summer minima in 1990/91 and 1996/97. Maximum area transport occurs in 1991, and although this predates the ERS-1 sca.