FastFind »   Lastname: doi:10.1029/ Year: | Advanced Search  

AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • Larsen Ice Shelf
  • marine ice

Index Terms

  • Cryosphere: Ice shelves
  • Oceanography: General: Arctic and Antarctic oceanography
  • Cryosphere: Glaciology

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L11604, 5 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2009GL038162

Marine ice in Larsen Ice Shelf

Paul R. Holland

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

Hugh F. J. Corr

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

David G. Vaughan

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

Adrian Jenkins

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

Pedro Skvarca

División Glaciología, Instituto Antártico Argentino, Buenos Aires, Argentina

It is argued that Larsen Ice Shelf contains marine ice formed by oceanic freezing and other mechanisms. Missing basal returns in airborne radar soundings and observations of a smooth and healed surface coincide downstream of regions where an ocean model predicts freezing. Visible imagery suggests that marine ice currently stabilizes Larsen C Ice Shelf and implicates failure of marine flow bands in the 2002 Larsen B Ice Shelf collapse. Ocean modeling indicates that any regime change towards the incursion of warmer Modified Weddell Deep Water into the Larsen C cavity could curtail basal freezing and its stabilizing influence.

Received 12 March 2009; accepted 24 April 2009; published 4 June 2009.

Citation: Holland, P. R., H. F. J. Corr, D. G. Vaughan, A. Jenkins, and P. Skvarca (2009), Marine ice in Larsen Ice Shelf, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L11604, doi:10.1029/2009GL038162.

Cited By

Please wait one moment ...