West Antarctic surface melt triggered by atmospheric rivers

Wille, Jonathan D.; Favier, Vincent; Dufour, Ambrose; Gorodetskaya, Irina V.; Turner, John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6111-5122; Agosta, Cecile; Codron, Francis. 2019 West Antarctic surface melt triggered by atmospheric rivers. Nature Geoscience, 12 (11). 911-916. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0460-1

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Official URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0460-1

Abstract/Summary

Recent major melting events in West Antarctica have raised concerns about a potential hydrofracturing and ice shelf instability. These events often share common forcings of surface melt-like anomalous radiative fluxes, turbulent heat fluxes and föhn winds. Using an atmospheric river detection algorithm developed for Antarctica together with surface melt datasets, we produced a climatology of atmospheric river-related surface melting around Antarctica and show that atmospheric rivers are associated with a large percentage of these surface melt events. Despite their rarity (around 12 events per year in West Antarctica), atmospheric rivers are associated with around 40% of the total summer meltwater generated across the Ross Ice Shelf to nearly 100% in the higher elevation Marie Byrd Land and 40–80% of the total winter meltwater generated on the Wilkins, Bach, George IV and Larsen B and C ice shelves. These events were all related to high-pressure blocking ridges that directed anomalous poleward moisture transport towards the continent. Major melt events in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet only occur about a couple times per decade, but a 1–2 °C warming and continued increase in atmospheric river activity could increase the melt frequency with consequences for ice shelf stability.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0460-1
ISSN:	17520894
Additional Keywords:	atmospheric dynamics, surface melt, mass balance, cryospheric science
Date made live:	08 Nov 2019 15:40 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/525774

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0460-1

ISSN:

17520894

Additional Keywords:

atmospheric dynamics, surface melt, mass balance, cryospheric science

Date made live:

08 Nov 2019 15:40 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/525774