Swirls and scoops: Ice base melt revealed by multibeam imagery of an Antarctic ice shelf

Knowledge gaps about how the ocean melts Antarctica’s ice shelves, borne from a lack of observations, lead to large uncertainties in sea level predictions. Using high-resolution maps of the underside of Dotson Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, we reveal the imprint that ice shelf basal melting leaves on t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science Advances
Main Authors: Wåhlin, Anna, Alley, Karen E., Begeman, Carolyn, Hegrenæs, Øyvind, Yuan, Xiaohan, Graham, Alastair G. C., Hogan, Kelly, Davis, Peter E. D., Dotto, Tiago S., Eayrs, Clare, Hall, Robert A., Kim, Tae Wan, Larter, Robert D., Ling, Li, Muto, Atsuhiro, Pettit, Erin C., Schmidt, Britney E., Snow, Tasha, Stedt, Filip, Washam, Peter M., Wahlgren, Stina, Wild, Christian, Wellner, Julia, Zheng, Yixi, Heywood, Karen J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Antarctic
West Antarctica
Dotson Ice Shelf
Teardrop
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Shelf
Ice Shelves
Online Access:https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96178/
https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96178/1/Wahlin_etal_2024_SciAdv_adn9188.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn9188
Description
Summary:Knowledge gaps about how the ocean melts Antarctica’s ice shelves, borne from a lack of observations, lead to large uncertainties in sea level predictions. Using high-resolution maps of the underside of Dotson Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, we reveal the imprint that ice shelf basal melting leaves on the ice. Convection and intermittent warm water intrusions form widespread terraced features through slow melting in quiescent areas, while shear-driven turbulence rapidly melts smooth, eroded topographies in outflow areas, as well as enigmatic teardrop-shaped indentations that result from boundary-layer flow rotation. Full-thickness ice fractures, with bases modified by basal melting and convective processes, are observed throughout the area. This new wealth of processes, all active under a single ice shelf, must be considered to accurately predict future Antarctic ice shelf melt.

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