Eighteen-year record of circum-Antarctic landfast-sea-ice distribution allows detailed baseline characterisation and reveals trends and variability
Landfast sea ice (fast ice) is an important though poorly understood component of the cryosphere on the Antarctic continental shelf, where it plays a key role in atmosphere–ocean–ice-sheet interaction and coupled ecological and biogeochemical processes. Here, we present a first in-depth baseline ana...
Published in: | The Cryosphere |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2021
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5061-2021 https://doaj.org/article/7aa407daf1784738a54b1a15e7b29e9f |
Summary: | Landfast sea ice (fast ice) is an important though poorly understood component of the cryosphere on the Antarctic continental shelf, where it plays a key role in atmosphere–ocean–ice-sheet interaction and coupled ecological and biogeochemical processes. Here, we present a first in-depth baseline analysis of variability and change in circum-Antarctic fast-ice distribution (including its relationship to bathymetry), based on a new high-resolution satellite-derived time series for the period 2000 to 2018. This reveals (a) an overall trend of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">882</mn><mo>±</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">824</mn></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="58pt" height="10pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="453c88ebba731e287b80a2e1ca09d1f2"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="tc-15-5061-2021-ie00001.svg" width="58pt" height="10pt" src="tc-15-5061-2021-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg> km 2 yr −1 ( <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M4" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">0.19</mn><mo>±</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">0.18</mn></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="64pt" height="10pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="ae39578bd83f0d4df3b4603b31a77636"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="tc-15-5061-2021-ie00002.svg" width="64pt" height="10pt" src="tc-15-5061-2021-ie00002.png"/></svg:svg> % yr −1 ) and (b) eight distinct regions in terms of fast-ice coverage and modes of formation. Of these, four exhibit positive trends over the 18-year period and four negative. Positive trends are seen in East Antarctica and in ... |
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