Observations of turbulent mixing in the Dotson Ice Shelf cavity

Dotson Ice Shelf (DIS) is located in the Amundsen Sea sector of Antarctica, an area of rapid glacial mass loss due to ocean-driven basal melting. Here, warm Circumpolar Deep Water is transported onto the continental shelf and can access ice shelf cavities and deep grounding lines, causing melting, glacial retreat and thus sea level rise. The circulation of this warm water, and the heat transport within ice shelf cavities, remains mostly unknown. We collected data from over 100 km of dive tracks along the seabed under DIS using an autonomous vehicle, AutoSub Long Range. This study presents observations of ocean velocity, turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate (ε) from microstructure measurements, and heat flux calculations. Rates of background mixing are ε≈10−10 W kg−1 with patches of higher mixing of ε≈10−8 W kg−1. Higher turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate is associated with stronger along-slope currents, high vertical current shear, steeper bathymetry, and positive temperature anomalies. Average vertical heat fluxes are on the order of 0.1 W m−2 and maximum heat fluxes reach 52 W m−2. This is compared to the 59 to 176 W m−2 needed to maintain observed average basal melt rates at DIS. Turbulent mixing is higher in the fast-flowing inflow region and over rough topography. We show a highly complex spatial pattern of turbulent mixing and of bottom topography. The bottom topography is currently not resolved in bathymetry products and both the topography and turbulent mixing are currently not resolved in models of ice-shelf–ocean interactions. The levels of turbulent mixing experienced by the warm mCDW inflow to the DIS will lead to negligible loss of heat during its path to the grounding line, leaving plenty of heat available to melt the ice shelf base there. Higher average vertical heat fluxes than observed here must occur in areas of the cavity not accessed in this study.