Dynamic Response to Ice Shelf Basal Meltwater Relevant to Explain Observed Sea Ice Trends Near the Antarctic Continental Shelf

Observed Antarctic sea ice trends up to 2015 have a distinct regional and seasonal pattern, with a loss during austral summer and autumn in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas, and a year-round increase in the Ross Sea. Global climate models generally failed to reproduce the magnitude of sea ice tr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Huneke, Wilma G. C., Hobbs, William R., Klocker, Andreas, Naughten, Kaitlin A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Antarktis
Antarctica
Klimamodeller
Climate models
VDP::Oseanografi: 452
VDP::Oceanography: 452
Antarctic
Austral
Ross Sea
The Antarctic
West Antarctica
Antarc*
Antarktis*
Ice Shelf
Sea ice
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3150717
https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL105435
Description
Summary:Observed Antarctic sea ice trends up to 2015 have a distinct regional and seasonal pattern, with a loss during austral summer and autumn in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas, and a year-round increase in the Ross Sea. Global climate models generally failed to reproduce the magnitude of sea ice trends implying that the models miss relevant mechanisms. One possible mechanism is basal meltwater, which is generally not included in the current generation of climate models. Previous work on the effects of meltwater on sea ice has focused on thermodynamic processes. However, local freshening also leads to dynamic changes, affecting ocean currents through geostrophic balance. Using a coupled ocean/sea-ice/ice-shelf model, we demonstrate that basal melting can intensify coastal currents in West Antarctica and the westward transport of sea ice. This change in transport results in sea ice anomalies consistent with observations, and may explain the disparity between climate models and observations. publishedVersion

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