The spatio-temporal patterns of landfast ice in Antarctica during 2006-2011 and 2016-2017 using high-resolution SAR imagery

Landfast ice is an important component of the Antarctic sea ice regime. It affects the Antarctic climate and ecological system. In this study, the first high-resolution, long time series of the landfast ice edge from 2006 to 2011 and 2016 to 2017 is presented. The dataset was produced based on the improved net gradient difference algorithm using 2470 SAR scenes from ENVISAT and Sentinel-1A/B as well as manual analysis of MODIS imagery to fill in SAR data gaps. The study results show that the landfast ice area in November for all studied years was approximately 49.49 ± 3.25 × 10⁴ km², accounting for about 3%–4% of the total Antarctic sea ice area. The maximum area was 55.70 × 10⁴ km² in November 2007, compared to the minimum area 44.01 × 10⁴ km² in 2011. The area in West Antarctica was about 40% of that in East Antarctica. The distribution of landfast ice in Antarctica has significant regional differences. The extent in the Indian Ocean sector is the maximum with a mean value of 16.49 ± 1.1 × 10⁴ km²; however, the ratio of the landfast ice area to the sea ice area in the Pacific Ocean sector is the highest. Twenty-four landfast ice zones with groups of small, grounded icebergs were identified, most of which were located in East Antarctica, particularly along the Wilkes Land and Oates Land. Two cases are presented to illustrate how giant, grounded icebergs affected landfast ice. Results from this study are well suited to underpin the Antarctic climate or ecological system studies.