Coastal regions of Antarctica are very dynamic, and understanding their current and past behavior will help us anticipate future ice sheet change. Along the Amundsen Sea coast, the Pacific Ocean-facing coast of Antarctica, large glaciers--particularly Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers--are thinning, retreating and losing mass.
The animation below shows that Antarctic mass loss is focused along the Amundsen Sea coast, which looks like a hot spot to the GRACE gravity satellites, courtesy of NASA.
The animation below shows that Antarctic mass loss is focused along the Amundsen Sea coast, which looks like a hot spot to the GRACE gravity satellites, courtesy of NASA.
Is observed ice loss in West Antarctica linked to climate change? Is it extraordinary? We can't evaluate this without paleoclimate context from ice, rock, sediment archives. @ericsteig & my take in @NatureComms: https://t.co/TiNHkJ44Ze #oa #openaccess pic.twitter.com/2QcLIRabDu
— Peter Neff (@peter_neff) July 16, 2018
Coastal ice domes lining Antarctica have been quietly recording local climate for millennia, and I hope to learn what they can tell us about ongoing change in coastal West Antarctica. They particularly will help us provide context, potentially answering the question, "What role does anthropogenic climate change play in ongoing change in West Antarctica?"
Below and to the left is an image of an ice dome named Wright Island on the Amundsen Sea coast of West Antarctica (the photo was taken in the 1960s). This feature, like all ice domes, is an area of ice which sits on bedrock and is surrounded by a larger floating ice shelf (the Getz Ice Shelf, in this case). It sits not far west of Thwaites Glacier.
As Antarctic ice flows out to the ocean, it begins to float (just like ice in your drink) forming a fringe of ice shelves around the continent.
These ice domes provide stability points for this floating ice, and also contain layers of old snow and ice that can tell us about climate. The image below and to the right is a radargram taken by NASA Operation IceBridge flying over Wright Island. The radar pass is marked with a dotted line on the aerial image.
As Antarctic ice flows out to the ocean, it begins to float (just like ice in your drink) forming a fringe of ice shelves around the continent.
These ice domes provide stability points for this floating ice, and also contain layers of old snow and ice that can tell us about climate. The image below and to the right is a radargram taken by NASA Operation IceBridge flying over Wright Island. The radar pass is marked with a dotted line on the aerial image.
Image courtesy Polar Geospatial Center, check them out for more archival US Navy aerial photos.
For now, all we can do is study these airborne data, but one day we hope to get feet on the ground and recover shallow ice cores from ice domes across the Pacific coast of West Antarctica. This will improve our understanding of the outsize influence that the Pacific Ocean has on climate and ice dynamics in Antarctica, and will better allow us to anticipate future sea-level rise coming from this ice mass.
Stay tuned!
Background video at header is a timelapse of MODIS images over the Getz Ice Shelf, Amundsen Sea coast, West Antarctica from 2001 to 2017. Wright Island is the right-most ice dome fully within the frame. Courtesy National Snow and Ice Data Center Images of Antarctic Ice Shelves.