Ocean circulation beneath the Ronne ice shelf

Nicholls, Keith W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2188-4509; Makinson, Keith ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5791-1767; Robinson, A. V.. 1991 Ocean circulation beneath the Ronne ice shelf. Nature, 354 (6350). 221-223. 10.1038/354221a0

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/354221a0

Abstract/Summary

THE intimate thermal contact between the base of Antarctic ice shelves and the underlying ocean enables changes in climate to have a rapid impact on the outflow of ice from the interior of Antarctica1,2. Furthermore, water modified by passage under ice shelves, particularly in the Weddell Sea, is believed to be an important constituent of Antarctic Bottom Water3—a water mass that can be observed as far north as 50° N in the deep oceans4. Antarctic Bottom Water is both cold and oxygen-rich, and plays an important part in the cooling and ventilation of the world's oceans. Because of the difficulty in gaining access, the oceano-graphic regime beneath ice shelves is very poorly sampled5. By successfully drilling through the ice, however, we were able to obtain oceanographic data from beneath the largest Antarctic ice shelf, the Ronne–Filchner ice shelf in the southern Weddell Sea. We find that our data agree well with the predictions of a relatively simple oceanographic plume model of sub-ice-shelf circulation6. This model can therefore be used with some confidence to investigate the links between climate changes, ice-shelf melting and bottom-water production.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1038/354221a0
ISSN:	0028-0836
Date made live:	21 May 2018 12:58 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/520115

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1038/354221a0

ISSN:

0028-0836

Date made live:

21 May 2018 12:58 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/520115