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. 2017 Nov 1;3(11):e1701681.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1701681. eCollection 2017 Nov.

Wind causes Totten Ice Shelf melt and acceleration

Chad A Greene  1   2 , Donald D Blankenship  1   2 , David E Gwyther  3 , Alessandro Silvano  3   4 , Esmee van Wijk  4   5
Affiliations

Wind causes Totten Ice Shelf melt and acceleration

Chad A Greene et al. Sci Adv. .

Abstract

Totten Glacier in East Antarctica has the potential to raise global sea level by at least 3.5 m, but its sensitivity to climate change has not been well understood. The glacier is coupled to the ocean by the Totten Ice Shelf, which has exhibited variable speed, thickness, and grounding line position in recent years. To understand the drivers of this interannual variability, we compare ice velocity to oceanic wind stress and find a consistent pattern of ice-shelf acceleration 19 months after upwelling anomalies occur at the continental shelf break nearby. The sensitivity to climate forcing we observe is a response to wind-driven redistribution of oceanic heat and is independent of large-scale warming of the atmosphere or ocean. Our results establish a link between the stability of Totten Glacier and upwelling near the East Antarctic coast, where surface winds are projected to intensify over the next century as a result of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Ice flow regime of TIS, 2001 to 2014.
(A) Mean surface velocity from 2001 to 2014. A green polygon outlines the region of velocity measurements used in this analysis. A white box outlines the region used in a previous study by Roberts et al. (6). Inset map shows the location of TIS. (B) Linear trend of surface velocity indicates an overall slowdown of TIS from 2001 to 2014, whereas the surrounding grounded ice accelerated. Accelerations close to the ice front reflect calving processes. (C) The curl of the mean surface velocity is used to identify shear margins within TIS. The orange polygon outlines the region of surface velocities plotted in fig. S2B.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Upwelling and ice-shelf velocity time series.
(A) Vertical water velocity at the bottom of the Ekman layer estimated from surface-water divergence caused by wind stress; plotted is the mean velocity within the gold polygon in Fig. 3D. Light and dark lines are low-pass–filtered to 12 and 24 months, respectively. (B) Dark red line is the ice velocity derived from 629 displacement measurements shown as thin gray lines bounded by the shaded region of estimated uncertainties (fig. S5). Blue lines are from displacement observations published in a previous study by Roberts et al. (6). The horizontal axis of (B) has been shifted relative to (A) to account for an observed 19-month lag.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Reanalysis fields and ice-shelf velocity.
(A to D) Regression coefficients of linear least-squares fits of TIS velocity and zonal wind stress [μPa/(m a−1)] (A), meridional wind stress [μPa/(m a−1)] (B), sea-ice concentration [%/(m a−1)] (C), and upwelling [(μm s−1)/(m a−1)] (D). All panels contain gray vectors representing mean wind velocity, gray 1-km bathymetric contours, and a gold polygon outlining the region of upwelling referred to in Fig. 2A. Gray shading denotes statistical insignificance at the 95% confidence level. Coefficients of determination are given in fig. S4.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Schematic of mCDW upwelling along the Antarctica’s Sabrina Coast.
Around Antarctica, the warmest waters are found in the deep ocean north of the continental shelf break. Where wind stress (gray vectors) causes surface waters to part, warm deep water (red arrow) can upwell, surmount the continental shelf, and melt nearby ice shelves from below. Seafloor color depicts the covariance of TIS velocity and local upwelling as in Fig. 3D, indicating where wind-driven upwelling is closely linked to TIS velocity.
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