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Ocean heat drives rapid basal melt of the Totten Ice Shelf

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posted on 2023-05-19, 01:01 authored by Stephen Rintoul, Silvano, A, Beatriz Pena-MolinoBeatriz Pena-Molino, van Wijk, E, Mark RosenbergMark Rosenberg, Greenbaum, JS, Blankenship, DD
Mass loss from the West Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers has been linked to basal melt by ocean heat flux. The Totten Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, which buttresses a marine-based ice sheet with a volume equivalent to at least 3.5 m of global sea-level rise, also experiences rapid basal melt, but the role of ocean forcing was not known because of a lack of observations near the ice shelf. Observations from the Totten calving front confirm that (0.22 ± 0.07) × 106 m3 s−1 of warm water enters the cavity through a newly discovered deep channel. The ocean heat transport into the cavity is sufficient to support the large basal melt rates inferred from glaciological observations. Change in ocean heat flux is a plausible physical mechanism to explain past and projected changes in this sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and its contribution to sea level.

History

Publication title

Science Advances

Issue

12

Article number

1601610

Number

1601610

Pagination

1-6

ISSN

2375-2548

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (A A A S)

Place of publication

United States

Rights statement

Copyright 2016 The Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Antarctic and Southern Ocean oceanic processes

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