Channelized ice melting in the ocean boundary layer beneath Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Stanton, T.P, Shaw, W.J., Truffer, M., Corr, H.F.J., Peters, L.E., Wilson, K.L., Bindschadler, R., Holland, D.M., Anandakrishnan, S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: AAAS 2013
• Subjects: Antarctic; Pine Island Glacier; The Antarctic; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves; Pine Island
• Online Access: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/502583/

Ice shelves play a key role in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheets by buttressing their seaward-flowing outlet glaciers; however, they are exposed to the underlying ocean and may weaken if ocean thermal forcing increases. An expedition to the ice shelf of the remote Pine Island Glacier, a major outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that has rapidly thinned and accelerated in recent decades, has been completed. Observations from geophysical surveys and long-term oceanographic instruments deployed down bore holes into the ocean cavity reveal a buoyancy-driven boundary layer within a basal channel that melts the channel apex by 0.06 meter per day, with near-zero melt rates along the flanks of the channel. A complex pattern of such channels is visible throughout the Pine Island Glacier shelf.