Rapid subsurface warming and circulation changes of Antarctic coastal waters by poleward shifting winds

International audience The southern hemisphere westerly winds have been strengthening and shifting poleward since the 1950s. This wind trend is projected to persist under continued anthropogenic forcing, but the impact of the changing winds on Antarctic coastal heat distribution remains poorly under...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Spence, Paul, Griffies, Stephen, M, England, Matthew, Hogg, Andrew Mcc., Saenko, Oleg, Jourdain, Nicolas
Other Authors: University of New South Wales Sydney (UNSW), NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Climate Change Research Centre Sydney (CCRC), Australian National University - Department of engineering (ANU), Australian National University (ANU), Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes 2016-2019 (UGA 2016-2019 )
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2014
Subjects:
[SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Sheet
Ice Shelves
Online Access:https://hal.science/hal-02433643
https://hal.science/hal-02433643/document
https://hal.science/hal-02433643/file/2014GL060613.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL060613
Description
Summary:International audience The southern hemisphere westerly winds have been strengthening and shifting poleward since the 1950s. This wind trend is projected to persist under continued anthropogenic forcing, but the impact of the changing winds on Antarctic coastal heat distribution remains poorly understood. Here we show that a poleward wind shift at the latitudes of the Antarctic Peninsula can produce an intense warming of subsurface coastal waters that exceeds 2°C at 200–700 m depth. The model simulated warming results from a rapid advective heat flux induced by weakened near-shore Ekman pumping and is associated with weakened coastal currents. This analysis shows that anthropogenically induced wind changes can dramatically increase the temperature of ocean water at ice sheet grounding lines and at the base of floating ice shelves around Antarctica, with potentially significant ramifications for global sea level rise.

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