Marine ice in Larsen Ice Shelf

[1] It is argued that Larsen Ice Shelf contains marine ice formed by oceanic freezing and other mechanisms. Missing basal returns in airborne radar soundings and observations of a smooth and healed surface coincide downstream of regions where an ocean model predicts freezing. Visible imagery suggest...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Holland, Paul R., Corr, Hugh F. J., Vaughan, David G., Jenkins, Adrian, Skvarca, Pedro
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union 2009
Subjects:
F700 Ocean Sciences
F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences
Larsen Ice Shelf
Weddell
Ice Shelf
Online Access:https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/46007/
https://doi.org/10.1029/2009gl038162
https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/46007/1/2009GL038162.pdf
Description
Summary:[1] It is argued that Larsen Ice Shelf contains marine ice formed by oceanic freezing and other mechanisms. Missing basal returns in airborne radar soundings and observations of a smooth and healed surface coincide downstream of regions where an ocean model predicts freezing. Visible imagery suggests that marine ice currently stabilizes Larsen C Ice Shelf and implicates failure of marine flow bands in the 2002 Larsen B Ice Shelf collapse. Ocean modeling indicates that any regime change towards the incursion of warmer Modified Weddell Deep Water into the Larsen C cavity could curtail basal freezing and its stabilizing influence.

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