Dynamic thinning of glaciers on the Southern Antarctic Peninsula

• Main Authors: Wouters, B., Martin-Espanol, A., Helm, V., Flament, T., van Wessem, J. M., Ligtenberg, S. R. M., van den Broeke, M. R., Bamber, J. L.
• Other Authors: Sub Dynamics Meteorology, Marine and Atmospheric Research
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: AMUNDSEN SEA EMBAYMENT; ICE-SHEET; WEST ANTARCTICA; MASS-BALANCE; SHELF; COLLAPSE; RETREAT; CRYOSAT-2; DRIVEN; WATERS; Taverne; Amundsen Sea; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/321815

Growing evidence has demonstrated the importance of ice shelf buttressing on the inland grounded ice, especially if it is resting on bedrock below sea level. Much of the Southern Antarctic Peninsula satisfies this condition and also possesses a bed slope that deepens inland. Such ice sheet geometry is potentially unstable. We use satellite altimetry and gravity observations to show that a major portion of the region has, since 2009, destabilized. Ice mass loss of the marine-terminating glaciers has rapidly accelerated from close to balance in the 2000s to a sustained rate of -56 +/- 8 gigatons per year, constituting a major fraction of Antarctica's contribution to rising sea level. The widespread, simultaneous nature of the acceleration, in the absence of a persistent atmospheric forcing, points to an oceanic driving mechanism.