Role of shelf morphology in grounding-line stability: a numerical approach

• Main Author: Robinson, Rhonika
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: LSU Digital Commons 2009
• Subjects: West Antarctic Ice Sheet; continental shelf morphology; grounding line; basal melting; Earth Sciences; Antarctic; Antarc*; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/2510; https://doi.org/10.31390/gradschool_theses.2510; https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/context/gradschool_theses/article/3509/viewcontent/uc.pdf

The main concern of this study is to discover how the transition from a shallow to an overdeepened, foredeepened shelf might affect grounding-line translation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Deep shelves permit a larger influx of relatively warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), which melts the ice at grounding lines, and thereby, create a potentially unstable situation in which ice retreat may accelerate. Numerical analysis of the responses of marine ice sheets on various shelf profiles confirmed that a change in shelf morphology changes ice sheet dynamics. Ice sheet retreat on an overdeepened, foredeepened shelf is, at least, 3 times faster than ice sheet retreat on a shallow shelf that deepens toward the basin. Therefore, we can conclude that as the shelf transformed from its previous shallow, slightly dipping configuration to the present overdeepened, foredeepened configuration the ice sheet, indeed, became more susceptible to rapid retreat.