Massive subsurface ice formed by refreezing of ice-shelf melt ponds

• Main Authors: Hubbard, Bryn, Philippe, Morgane, Tison, Jean-Louis
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Glaciologie; Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/231741; https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/231741/4/doi_215368.pdf; https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/231741/3/ncomms11897.pdf

Surface melt ponds form intermittently on several Antarctic ice shelves. Although implicatedin ice-shelf break up, the consequences of such ponding for ice formation and ice-shelfstructure have not been evaluated. Here we report the discovery of a massive subsurface icelayer, at least 16 km across, several kilometres long and tens of metres deep, located in anarea of intense melting and intermittent ponding on Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctica. Wecombine borehole optical televiewer logging and radar measurements with remote sensingand firn modelling to investigate the layer, found to be ~10°C warmer and ~170 kg/m³ denser than anticipated in the absence of ponding and hitherto used in models of ice-shelffracture and flow. Surface ponding and ice layers such as the one we report are likely to formon a wider range of Antarctic ice shelves in response to climatic warming in forthcomingdecades. 0 SCOPUS: ar.j info:eu-repo/semantics/published