Channelized ice melting in the ocean boundary layer beneath Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Stanton, TP, Shaw, WJ, Truffer, M, Corr, HFJ, Peters, LE, Riverman, KL, Bindschadler, R, Holland, DM, Anandakrishnan, S
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Amer Assoc Advancement Science 2013
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Oceanography; Oceanography not elsewhere classified; Antarctic; Pine Island Glacier; The Antarctic; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves; Pine Island
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239373; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/103754

Ice shelves play a key role in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheets by buttressing their seaward-flowing outlet glaciers; however, they are exposed to the underlying ocean and may weaken if ocean thermal forcing increases. An expedition to the ice shelf of the remote Pine Island Glacier, a major outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that has rapidly thinned and accelerated in recent decades, has been completed. Observations from geophysical surveys and long-term oceanographic instruments deployed down bore holes into the ocean cavity reveal a buoyancy-driven boundary layer within a basal channel that melts the channel apex by 0.06 meter per day, with near-zero melt rates along the flanks of the channel. A complex pattern of such channels is visible throughout the Pine Island Glacier shelf.