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Antarctic ice shelf disintegration triggered by sea ice loss and ocean swell

Nature volume 558, pages 383–389 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Understanding the causes of recent catastrophic ice shelf disintegrations is a crucial step towards improving coupled models of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and predicting its future state and contribution to sea-level rise. An overlooked climate-related causal factor is regional sea ice loss. Here we show that for the disintegration events observed (the collapse of the Larsen A and B and Wilkins ice shelves), the increased seasonal absence of a protective sea ice buffer enabled increased flexure of vulnerable outer ice shelf margins by ocean swells that probably weakened them to the point of calving. This outer-margin calving triggered wider-scale disintegration of ice shelves compromised by multiple factors in preceding years, with key prerequisites being extensive flooding and outer-margin fracturing. Wave-induced flexure is particularly effective in outermost ice shelf regions thinned by bottom crevassing. Our analysis of satellite and ocean-wave data and modelling of combined ice shelf, sea ice and wave properties highlights the need for ice sheet models to account for sea ice and ocean waves.

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Fig. 1: Linkages and processes in the structural weakening over time, then abrupt disintegration, of the Larsen A and B and Wilkins ice shelves.
Fig. 2: Satellite images showing the common features of four disintegration events.
Fig. 3: Trend map of satellite-derived annual sea ice season duration for the Weddell and Bellingshausen seas for 1979/1980 to 2009/2010.
Fig. 4: Time series showing reduction in sea ice coverage offshore from the Wilkins and Larsen ice shelves, and temporal coincidence with disintegration events.
Fig. 5: Results from a sea ice attenuation model and ice shelf-wave flexure model.
Fig. 6: Maximum swell-induced strain and enhanced fracture in the ice shelf front zone.

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Acknowledgements

This work contributes to Australian Antarctic Science project 4116, and was supported by the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Programme through the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre. It also contributes to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project Targeted Activity “Linkages Between Cryosphere Elements”. T.A.S. acknowledges NSF PLR 17-020175 and S.E.S. acknowledges NSF PLR 1440435. V.A.S. acknowledges the US Office of Naval Research Departmental Research Initiative “Sea State and Boundary Layer Physics of the Emerging Arctic Ocean” (award number N00014-131-0279) and the University of Otago. We appreciate the assistance of N. Glasser for Fig. 6b, c illustrating shelf fractures. We thank referees J. Hutchings, E. Rogers and R. Shen for their comments, which undoubtedly strengthened the paper.

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Nature thanks J. Hutchings, E. Rogers, R. Shen and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston, Tasmania, Australia

    Robert A. Massom

  2. Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Robert A. Massom & Phillip Reid

  3. National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Theodore A. Scambos

  4. School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Luke G. Bennetts

  5. Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Phillip Reid

  6. University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Vernon A. Squire

  7. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Sharon E. Stammerjohn

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Contributions

R.A.M. conceived the research, carried out the data synthesis and led the paper writing. All authors contributed to data analysis and interpretation, and writing, with each author contributing to several aspects of the manuscript and to its ideas. T.A.S. provided the ice shelf imagery and information and ice shelf expertise. L.G.B. carried out the sea ice-wave and ice shelf-wave interaction modelling and analysis, with V.A.S. providing expert input. P.R. contributed the wave data and analysis, and analysis of sea ice concentration data. S.E.S. provided analysis of change in sea ice seasonality from satellite data.

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Correspondence to Robert A. Massom.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Trends in satellite-derived daily sea ice concentration offshore of the ice shelves for 1979–2010.

Data for the Larsen A and B (a) and Wilkins (b) ice shelves are from the boxes marked L and W, respectively, in Fig. 3. Red denotes statistical significance at 90% level, while blue is not statistically significant.

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Maps of sea ice concentration anomaly conditions during the five disintegration events.

a, January 1995 (Larsen A); b, January–March 2002 (Larsen B); c, February–March 2008 (Wilkins); d, May–July 2008 (Wilkins); and e, March–April 2009 (Wilkins), versus the 1979–2010 mean for those months. The solid black contour demarcates the contemporary sea ice edge, while the dashed black contour demarcates the mean climatological (1981–2010) ice edge location for the periods in question. See Methods for an explanation of the sea ice artefact within the black circle in a. The Larsen A, Larsen B and Wilkins ice shelves are marked as LA, LB and WIS in d. The background map is based on the CIA World Map database (and we produced it using IDL; see Methods).

Extended Data Fig. 3 Time series of observed wave height and peak wave period and modelled maximum ice shelf strain, in the lead up to and during the Larsen disintegration events.

a, b, Daily significant wave height (blue) and peak wave period (red) within the Larsen boxed region (marked L in Fig. 3 for the Larsen A Ice Shelf collapse in 1995 and the Larsen B Ice Shelf collapse in 2002, respectively. c, d, Corresponding model predictions of maximum ice shelf strain for an ice shelf of thickness 80 m, 150 m and 200 m. Pink horizontal bars indicate periods when waves were propagating towards the shelf from the sector 30°–120° E, and light blue bars indicate periods when the ice concentration was less than 40%. Approximate timings of disintegration event onsets are marked as vertical dashed lines.

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Time series of observed wave height and peak period and modelled maximum ice shelf strain, in the lead up to and during the Wilkins disintegration events.

a, b, Daily significant wave height (blue) and peak wave period (red) within the Wilkins boxed region (marked W in Fig. 3 for the Wilkins Ice Shelf disintegration events in 2008 and 2009, respectively. c, d, Corresponding model predictions of maximum ice shelf strain for an ice shelf of thickness 80 m, 150 m and 200 m. Pink horizontal bars indicate periods when waves were propagating towards the shelf from the sector 0°–90° W, and light blue bars indicate periods when the sea ice concentration was less than 40%. Approximate timings of disintegration event onsets are marked as dashed lines.

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 5 MODIS visible images of the northern and western boundaries of the Wilkins Ice Shelf showing the presence or absence of landfast ice.

a, 18 January 2006; b, 16 January 2008; c, 17 March 2008; d, 27 December 2008; e, 6 March 2009; and f, 10 April 2009. CI is Charcot Island, LI is Latady Island, RI is Rothschild Island and AI is Alexander Island. Dashed lines denote the approximate seaward limit of the ice shelf. Other features (such as ‘unconsolidated mélange’) marked are explained in the text. Imagery from the NASA MODIS instrument was obtained from the NASA NSIDC DAAC archive (http://nsidc.org/data/iceshelves_images/)51.

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 6 Modelled strain magnitude as a function of distance in from the seaward ice shelf edge.

Modelled for an ice shelf of thickness 80 m, 150 m and 200 m and for wave periods 8 s (a), 12 s (b) and 16 s (c). Wave height is 2 m and a regular incident swell is assumed.

Source Data

Extended Data Table 1 Monthly, annual and seasonal mean satellite-derived sea ice concentrations for the earlier ‘ice-covered epoch’ from the region offshore of the Larsen A and B ice shelves
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Monthly, annual and seasonal mean satellite-derived sea ice concentrations for the later ‘sea ice loss epoch’ from the region offshore of the Larsen A and B ice shelves
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 Monthly, annual and seasonal mean satellite-derived sea ice concentrations from the region offshore of the Wilkins Ice Shelf
Full size table

Source Data

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Massom, R.A., Scambos, T.A., Bennetts, L.G. et al. Antarctic ice shelf disintegration triggered by sea ice loss and ocean swell. Nature 558, 383–389 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0212-1

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