Affiliation:
1. Research School of Earth Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes Australian National University Canberra ACT Australia
2. Australian Antarctic Program Partnership Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies University of Tasmania Hobart TAS Australia
3. NORCE Norwegian Research Centre Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research Bergen Norway
4. British Antarctic Survey Cambridge UK
Abstract
AbstractObserved Antarctic sea ice trends up to 2015 have a distinct regional and seasonal pattern, with a loss during austral summer and autumn in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas, and a year‐round increase in the Ross Sea. Global climate models generally failed to reproduce the magnitude of sea ice trends implying that the models miss relevant mechanisms. One possible mechanism is basal meltwater, which is generally not included in the current generation of climate models. Previous work on the effects of meltwater on sea ice has focused on thermodynamic processes. However, local freshening also leads to dynamic changes, affecting ocean currents through geostrophic balance. Using a coupled ocean/sea‐ice/ice‐shelf model, we demonstrate that basal melting can intensify coastal currents in West Antarctica and the westward transport of sea ice. This change in transport results in sea ice anomalies consistent with observations, and may explain the disparity between climate models and observations.
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences,Geophysics
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献