Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: Two disintegration events leading to the loss of Larsen A and B ice shelves, Antarctic Peninsula, in 1995 and 2002, respectively, proceeded with extreme rapidity (order of several days) and reduced an extensive, seemingly integrated ice shelf to ajumble of small fragments. These events strongly correlate with warming regional climate and accumulation of surface meltwater, supporting a hypothesis that meltwater-induced propagation of pre-existing surface crevasses may have initiated ice-shelf fragmentation.We address here an additional, subsequent mechanism that may sustain and accelerate the ice-shelf break-up once it begins. The proposed mechanism involves the coherent capsize of narrow (less than thickness) ice-shelf fragments by rolling 90° in a direction toward, or away from, the ice front. Fragment capsize liberates gravitational potential energy, forces open ice-shelf rifts and contributes to further fragmentation of the surrounding ice shelf.
Source: Journal of Glaciology
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: bronze
Awards: Ice-Shelf Rift Propagation: Computational Simulation Using a Fracture Fracture Mechanics Approach, Analysis of Antarctic Ice-Shelf Rifting, Calving and Ice-Front Ocean Interaction Using SAR Interferometry, Ice-Shelf Thermomechanical Models and Ocean Tidel Models, ICE SHELVES AND LANDFAST ICE ON THE ANTARCTIC PERI METER: CHARACTERISTICSAND THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE, SGER Proposal: Iceberg drift in the near-shelf environment, Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, Collaborative Research: Discharge Variability of Ross Ice Streams Over the Last Millenium, Deduced by Numerical Simulation of Flow Features in the Ross Ice Shelf
OpenAlex ID: W2086275337