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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L17502, doi:10.1029/2006GL027235, 2006

Transoceanic wave propagation links iceberg calving margins of Antarctica with storms in tropics and Northern Hemisphere

Douglas R. MacAyeal

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA


Emile A. Okal

Department of Geological Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA


Richard C. Aster

Geophysical Research Center and Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico, USA


Jeremy N. Bassis

Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA


Kelly M. Brunt

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA


L. Mac. Cathles

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA


Robert Drucker

School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA


Helen A. Fricker

Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA


Young-Jin Kim

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA


Seelye Martin

School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA


Marianne H. Okal

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA


Olga V. Sergienko

Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA


Mark P. Sponsler

Stormsurf, Half Moon Bay, California, USA


Jonathan E. Thom

Antarctic Meteorological Research Centre, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA


Abstract

We deployed seismometers on the Ross Ice Shelf and on various icebergs adrift in the Ross Sea (including B15A, a large 100 km by 30 km fragment of B15, which calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in March, 2000). The data reveal that the dominant energy of these floating ice masses is in the 0.01 to 0.1 Hz band, and is associated with sea swell generated in the tropical and extra-tropical Pacific Ocean. In one example, a strong storm in the Gulf of Alaska on 21 October 2005, approximately 13,500 km from the Ross Sea, generated swell that arrived at B15A immediately prior to, and during, its break-up off Cape Adare on 27 October 2005. If sea swell influences iceberg calving and break-up, a teleconnection exists between the Antarctic ice sheet mass balance and weather systems worldwide.

Received 14 June 2006; accepted 31 July 2006; published 12 September 2006.

Index Terms: 0732 Cryosphere: Icebergs; 0776 Cryosphere: Glaciology (1621, 1827, 1863); 0728 Cryosphere: Ice shelves; 4560 Oceanography: Physical: Surface waves and tides (1222); 7299 Seismology: General or miscellaneous.


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Citation: MacAyeal, D. R., et al. (2006), Transoceanic wave propagation links iceberg calving margins of Antarctica with storms in tropics and Northern Hemisphere, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L17502, doi:10.1029/2006GL027235.