Basal melt of the southern Filchner Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Zeising, Ole; Steinhage, Daniel; Nicholls, Keith W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2188-4509; Corr, Hugh F.J.; Stewart, Craig L.; Humbert, Angelika. 2022 Basal melt of the southern Filchner Ice Shelf, Antarctica. The Cryosphere, 16 (4). 1469-1482. 10.5194/tc-16-1469-2022

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1469-2022

Abstract/Summary

Basal melt of ice shelves is a key factor governing discharge of ice from the Antarctic Ice Sheet as a result of its effects on buttressing. Here, we use radio echo sounding to determine the spatial variability of the basal melt rate of the southern Filchner Ice Shelf, Antarctica, along the inflow of Support Force Glacier. We find moderate melt rates with a maximum of 1.13 ma(-1) about 50 km downstream of the grounding line. The variability of the melt rates over distances of a few kilometres is low (all but one < 0.15 ma(-1) at < 2 km distance), indicating that measurements on coarse observational grids are able to yield a representative melt rate distribution. A comparison with remote-sensing-based melt rates revealed that, for the study area, large differences were due to inaccuracies in the estimation of vertical strain rates from remote sensing velocity fields. These inaccuracies can be overcome by using modern velocity fields.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.5194/tc-16-1469-2022
ISSN:	1994-0424
Date made live:	12 May 2022 06:45 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/532608

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.5194/tc-16-1469-2022

ISSN:

1994-0424

Date made live:

12 May 2022 06:45 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/532608