Data from: Subglacial discharge accelerates future retreat of Denman and Scott Glaciers, East Antarctica ...

• Main Authors: Pelle, Tyler, Greenbaum, Jamin, Dow, Christine, Jenkins, Adrian, Morlighem, Mathieu
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: Antarctica; FOS Earth and related environmental sciences; ice sheet modeling; Climate change; Sea level rise; subglacial discharge; Glaciology; glacier retreat; Antarc*; Antarctic; Denman Glacier; East Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7280/d1x12s; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.7280/D1X12S

Ice shelf basal melting is the primary mechanism driving mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, yet it is unknown how the localized melt enhancement from subglacial discharge will impact future Antarctic glacial retreat. Here, we develop a parameterization of ice shelf basal melt that accounts for both ocean and subglacial discharge forcing and apply it in future projections of Denman and Scott Glaciers, East Antarctica, through 2300. In forward simulations, subglacial discharge accelerates retreat of these systems into the deepest continental trench on Earth by 25 years. During this retreat, Denman Glacier alone contributes 0.33 mm/yr to global sea level rise, comparable to half of the contemporary sea level contribution of the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet. Our results stress the importance of resolving complex interactions between the ice, ocean, and subglacial environments in future Antarctic Ice Sheet projections. In this data publication, we present the model output and results associated with the ... : Ice sheet model results: Direct results taken from the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM, Larour et al. 2012) with no processing applied, provided yearly as *.mat files. Ice sheet model initial state: Initial state (ice geometry, mesh information, inversion results, etc.) of the ice sheet model containing Denman and Scott Galciers with no processing applied, provided as a *.mat file. The contents of the *.mat file is a MATLAB variable of class "model", which is compatible with ISSM. Melt parameterization script: Documented MATLAB script ready to run with the provided data sets. Ocean temperature and salinity timeseries: Bottom ocean temperature (°C) and salinity (PSU) timeseries (January 1st, 2017 through December 31, 2299) extracted from an East Antarctic configuration of the ocean component of the MITgcm (Pelle et al., 2021). Temperature and salinity were averaged bi-weekly along the ice fronts of Denman and Scott Glaciers (see white dashed contour in figure 1a of the main manuscript text) along ...