Ocean mixing and heat transport processes observed under the Ross Ice Shelf control its basal melting.

ABSTRACT: The stability of large Antarctic ice shelves has important implications for global sea level, sea ice area, and ocean circulation. A significant proportion of ice mass loss from these ice shelves is through ocean-driven melting which is controlled by largely unobserved oceanic thermodynamic and circulatory processes in the cavity beneath the ice shelf. Here we use direct measurements to provide evidence of the changing water column structure in the cavity beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, the planet's largest ice shelf by area. The cavity water column data exhibit both basal and benthic boundary layers, along with evidence of tidally modulated and diffusively convecting internal mixing processes. A region of thermohaline interleaving in the upper-middle water column indicates elevated diffusion

SUBMITTER: Stevens C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7382223 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature