Mathematical Models of Ice Shelves

Transoceanic infragravity waves impacting Antarctic ice shelves

[1] Long-period oceanic infragravity (IG) waves (ca. [250, 50] s period) are generated along continental coastlines by nonlinear wave interactions of storm-forced shoreward propagating swell. Seismic observations on the Ross Ice Shelf show that free IG waves generated along the Pacific coast of North America propagate transoceanically to Antarctica, where they induce a much higher amplitude she...

A Dynamic Memory of Fracture Processes in Ice Shelves

Future sea-level rise has the potential to affect a large fractions of the world’s urbanized areas and many generations to come. In order to design suitable mitigation and adaptation measures, accurate sea-level projections are required. Ice dynamics within the Antarctic Ice Sheet constitutes the major uncertainty in state-of-the-art model approaches. Floating ice shelves around the Antarctic c...

Melting and freezing under Antarctic ice shelves from a combination of ice-sheet modelling and observations

Rapid submarine ice melting in the grounding zones of ice shelves in West Antarctica

Enhanced submarine ice-shelf melting strongly controls ice loss in the Amundsen Sea embayment (ASE) of West Antarctica, but its magnitude is not well known in the critical grounding zones of the ASE's major glaciers. Here we directly quantify bottom ice losses along tens of kilometres with airborne radar sounding of the Dotson and Crosson ice shelves, which buttress the rapidly changing Smith, ...

Tsunami and infragravity waves impacting Antarctic ice shelves

The responses of the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) to the 16 September 2015 8.3 (Mw) Chilean earthquake tsunami (>75 s period) and to oceanic infragravity (IG) waves (50–300 s period) were recorded by a broadband seismic array deployed on the RIS from November 2014 to November 2016. Here we show that tsunami and IG-generated signals within the RIS propagate at gravity wave speeds ( 70 m/s) as water-ice ...