scholarly journals Ocean-excited plate waves in the Ross and Pine Island Glacier ice shelves

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (247) ◽  
pp. 730-744 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZHAO CHEN ◽  
PETER D. BROMIRSKI ◽  
PETER GERSTOFT ◽  
RALPH A. STEPHEN ◽  
DOUGLAS A. WIENS ◽  
...  

AbstractIce shelves play an important role in buttressing land ice from reaching the sea, thus restraining the rate of grounded ice loss. Long-period gravity-wave impacts excite vibrations in ice shelves that can expand pre-existing fractures and trigger iceberg calving. To investigate the spatial amplitude variability and propagation characteristics of these vibrations, a 34-station broadband seismic array was deployed on the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) from November 2014 to November 2016. Two types of ice-shelf plate waves were identified with beamforming: flexural-gravity waves and extensional Lamb waves. Below 20 mHz, flexural-gravity waves dominate coherent signals across the array and propagate landward from the ice front at close to shallow-water gravity-wave speeds (~70 m s−1). In the 20–100 mHz band, extensional Lamb waves dominate and propagate at phase speeds ~3 km s−1. Flexural-gravity and extensional Lamb waves were also observed by a 5-station broadband seismic array deployed on the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) ice shelf from January 2012 to December 2013, with flexural wave energy, also detected at the PIG in the 20–100 mHz band. Considering the ubiquitous presence of storm activity in the Southern Ocean and the similar observations at both the RIS and the PIG ice shelves, it is likely that most, if not all, West Antarctic ice shelves are subjected to similar gravity-wave excitation.

1983 ◽  
Vol 29 (101) ◽  
pp. 133-141
Author(s):  
Edwin S. Robinson

AbstractFlexural–gravity waves in the 3 ms to 50 ms period range were recorded on floating layers of ice ranging from 6 cm to 52 cm in thickness. These inversely dispersive waves are analogous to Rayleigh waves propagating on a multi-layered structure. Therefore, flexural–gravity wave dispersion curves can be calculated by the well-known Haskell–Thompson method. This approach allows the effects of snow layers and stratification of the ice to be evaluated. In earlier methods of calculating flexural–gravity wave dispersion. the structure was restricted to a single homogeneous solid layer over a homogeneous fluid. The effect of a low-velocity snow layer is to reduce the short-period phase velocity, and to increase the velocity at long periods. Dispersion curves for ice layers with and without a snow cover cross at an intermediate period that increases as ice thickness increases. These effects are measurable in seismic experiments on frozen ponds and lakes.


1983 ◽  
Vol 29 (101) ◽  
pp. 133-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin S. Robinson

AbstractFlexural–gravity waves in the 3 ms to 50 ms period range were recorded on floating layers of ice ranging from 6 cm to 52 cm in thickness. These inversely dispersive waves are analogous to Rayleigh waves propagating on a multi-layered structure. Therefore, flexural–gravity wave dispersion curves can be calculated by the well-known Haskell–Thompson method. This approach allows the effects of snow layers and stratification of the ice to be evaluated. In earlier methods of calculating flexural–gravity wave dispersion. the structure was restricted to a single homogeneous solid layer over a homogeneous fluid. The effect of a low-velocity snow layer is to reduce the short-period phase velocity, and to increase the velocity at long periods. Dispersion curves for ice layers with and without a snow cover cross at an intermediate period that increases as ice thickness increases. These effects are measurable in seismic experiments on frozen ponds and lakes.


2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (59) ◽  
pp. 51-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Guttenberg ◽  
Dorian S. Abbot ◽  
Jason M. Amundson ◽  
Justin C. Burton ◽  
L. Mac Cathles ◽  
...  

AbstractPotential energy released from the capsize of ice-shelf fragments (icebergs) is the immediate driver of the brief explosive phase of ice-shelf disintegration along the Antarctic Peninsula (e.g. the Larsen A, Larsen B and Wilkins ice shelves). The majority of this energy powers the rapidly expanding plume of ice-shelf fragments that expands outward into the open ocean; a smaller fraction of this energy goes into surface gravity waves and other dynamic interactions between ice and water that can sustain the continued fragmentation and break-up of the original ice shelf. As an initial approach to the investigation of ice-shelf fragment capsize in ice-shelf collapse, we develop a simple conceptual model involving ideal rectangular icebergs, initially in unstable or metastable orientations, which are assembled into a tightly packed mass that subsequently disassembles via massed capsize. Computations based on this conceptual model display phenomenological similarity to aspects of real ice-shelf collapse. A promising result of the conceptual model presented here is a description of how iceberg aspect ratio and its statistical variance, the two parameters related to ice-shelf fracture patterns, influence the enabling conditions to be satisfied by slow-acting processes (e.g. environmentally driven melting) that facilitate ice-shelf disintegration.


2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Takeru Yamada ◽  
Takeshi Imamura ◽  
Tetsuya Fukuhara ◽  
Makoto Taguchi

AbstractThe reason for stationary gravity waves at Venus’ cloud top to appear mostly at low latitudes in the afternoon is not understood. Since a neutral layer exists in the lower part of the cloud layer, the waves should be affected by the neutral layer before reaching the cloud top. To what extent gravity waves can propagate vertically through the neutral layer has been unclear. To examine the possibility that the variation of the neutral layer thickness is responsible for the dependence of the gravity wave activity on the latitude and the local time, we investigated the sensitivity of the vertical propagation of gravity waves on the neutral layer thickness using a numerical model. The results showed that stationary gravity waves with zonal wavelengths longer than 1000 km can propagate to the cloud-top level without notable attenuation in the neutral layer with realistic thicknesses of 5–15 km. This suggests that the observed latitudinal and local time variation of the gravity wave activity should be attributed to processes below the cloud. An analytical approach also showed that gravity waves with horizontal wavelengths shorter than tens of kilometers would be strongly attenuated in the neutral layer; such waves should originate in the altitude region above the neutral layer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 921 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.D. Zeng ◽  
A.A. Korobkin ◽  
B.Y. Ni ◽  
Y.Z. Xue

Abstract


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Emily A. Hill ◽  
G. Hilmar Gudmundsson ◽  
J. Rachel Carr ◽  
Chris R. Stokes ◽  
Helen M. King

Abstract Ice shelves restrain flow from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Climate-ocean warming could force thinning or collapse of floating ice shelves and subsequently accelerate flow, increase ice discharge and raise global mean sea levels. Petermann Glacier (PG), northwest Greenland, recently lost large sections of its ice shelf, but its response to total ice shelf loss in the future remains uncertain. Here, we use the ice flow model Úa to assess the sensitivity of PG to changes in ice shelf extent, and to estimate the resultant loss of grounded ice and contribution to sea level rise. Our results have shown that under several scenarios of ice shelf thinning and retreat, removal of the shelf will not contribute substantially to global mean sea level (<1 mm). We hypothesize that grounded ice loss was limited by the stabilization of the grounding line at a topographic high ~12 km inland of its current grounding line position. Further inland, the likelihood of a narrow fjord that slopes seawards suggests that PG is likely to remain insensitive to terminus changes in the near future.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1801-1817 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler C. Sutterley ◽  
Thorsten Markus ◽  
Thomas A. Neumann ◽  
Michiel van den Broeke ◽  
J. Melchior van Wessem ◽  
...  

Abstract. We calculate rates of ice thickness change and bottom melt for ice shelves in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula from a combination of elevation measurements from NASA–CECS Antarctic ice mapping campaigns and NASA Operation IceBridge corrected for oceanic processes from measurements and models, surface velocity measurements from synthetic aperture radar, and high-resolution outputs from regional climate models. The ice thickness change rates are calculated in a Lagrangian reference frame to reduce the effects from advection of sharp vertical features, such as cracks and crevasses, that can saturate Eulerian-derived estimates. We use our method over different ice shelves in Antarctica, which vary in terms of size, repeat coverage from airborne altimetry, and dominant processes governing their recent changes. We find that the Larsen-C Ice Shelf is close to steady state over our observation period with spatial variations in ice thickness largely due to the flux divergence of the shelf. Firn and surface processes are responsible for some short-term variability in ice thickness of the Larsen-C Ice Shelf over the time period. The Wilkins Ice Shelf is sensitive to short-timescale coastal and upper-ocean processes, and basal melt is the dominant contributor to the ice thickness change over the period. At the Pine Island Ice Shelf in the critical region near the grounding zone, we find that ice shelf thickness change rates exceed 40 m yr−1, with the change dominated by strong submarine melting. Regions near the grounding zones of the Dotson and Crosson ice shelves are decreasing in thickness at rates greater than 40 m yr−1, also due to intense basal melt. NASA–CECS Antarctic ice mapping and NASA Operation IceBridge campaigns provide validation datasets for floating ice shelves at moderately high resolution when coregistered using Lagrangian methods.


2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. M. Kozin ◽  
V. L. Zemlyak ◽  
V. Yu. Vereshchagin

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