Sensitivity of Pine Island Glacier to observed ocean forcing
Author
Christianson, Knut
Holland, David M.
Bindschadler, Robert
Jacobs, Stan
Jenkins, Adrian
Webber, Benjamin G.M.
Truffer, Martin
Stanton, Timothy P.
Nicholls, Keith
Lee, Sang Hoon
Kim, Tae-Wan
Heywood, Karen J.
Bushuk, Mitchell
Shean, David E.
Parizek, Byron R.
Joughin, Ian R.
Anandakrishnan, Sridhar
Alley, Richard B.
Dutrieux, Pierre
Abrahamsen, E. Povl
Date
2016-10-28Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
We present subannual observations (2009–2014) of a major West Antarctic glacier (Pine Island Glacier) and the neighboring ocean. Ongoing glacier retreat and accelerated ice flow were likely triggered a few decades ago by increased ocean-induced thinning, which may have initiated marine ice sheet instability. Following a subsequent 60% drop in ocean heat content from early 2012 to late 2013, ice flow slowed, but by < 4%, with flow recovering as the ocean warmed to prior temperatures. During this cold-ocean period, the evolving glacier-bed/ice shelf system was also in a geometry favorable to stabilization. However, despite a minor, temporary decrease in ice discharge, the basin-wide thinning signal did not change. Thus, as predicted by theory, once marine ice sheet instability is underway, a single transient high-amplitude ocean cooling has only a relatively minor effect on ice flow. The long-term effects of ocean temperature variability on ice flow, however, are not yet known.
Description
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016GL070500
GPS data are archived with
UNAVCO (www.unavco.org).
Oceanographic data have been submitted
to the NOAA National Centers for
Environmental Information (https://
www.nodc.noaa.gov/), British
Oceanographic Data Centre (http://
www.bodc.ac.uk/), and IEDA/MGDS
Southern Ocean portal (http://www.
marine-geo.org/index.php). SARderived
ice velocity fields and grounding
lines, and basal altimeter range data
are freely available from the corresponding
author.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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