Project Details
Projekt
Sensitivity of Ice Shelf buttressing to ice heterogeneity and embayment geometry
Applicant
Dr. Daniela Jansen
Subject Area
Oceanography
Term
Funded in 2012
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 219854311
The ice shelves are regulating the amount of land-ice discharge into the ocean. Flow across the boundary between floating and ground based ice, the grounding line, defines the ice discharge which becomes sea level relevant. Although the decay of ice shelves is not directly contributing to sea level rise, it can trigger a dramatic secondary ice-dynamic effect: After the collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves in 1995 and 2002 a widespread acceleration and retreat of the former feeding glaciers has been observed. The acceleration process is an adaptation of the glacier-ice shelf system to the new balance of stresses at the grounding line following the removal or reduction of the shelf's buttressing effect. This balance can be also disturbed when the ice shelf is still intact but undergoing major changes in calving front position or coupling to its embayment. In order to simulate the future of the Antarctic ice sheet it is essential to understand the interaction of floating and grounded ice bodies, and to identify the processes that control the balance of forces at the grounding line prior to ice shelf disintegration. The project proposed aims to quantify, by numerical modelling, the buttressing effect as controlled by spatial or temporal changes in the geometry and heterogeneity of the Larsen B and Larsen C ice shelves. The results will ultimately improve estimates of the contribution to sea level rise from the Antarctic Peninsula within the next decades.
DFG Programme
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