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Chlorophyll Production in the Amundsen Sea Boosts Heat Flux to Atmosphere and Weakens Heat Flux to Ice Shelves

Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica features rapidly thinning ice shelves, large polynyas, and sizable spring phytoplankton blooms. Although considerable effort has gone into characterizing heat fluxes between the Amundsen Sea, its associated ice shelves, and the overlying atmosphere, the effect of the phytoplankton blooms on the distribution of heat remains poorly understood. In this modeling study, we implement a feedback from biogeochemistry onto physics into MITgcm‐BLING and use it to show that high levels of chlorophyll—concentrated in the Amundsen Sea Polynya and the Pine Island Polynya—have the potential to increase springtime surface warming in polynyas by steepening the attenuation profile of solar radiation with depth. The chlorophyll‐associated warm anomaly (on average between +0.2C and +0.3C) at the surface is quickly dissipated to the atmosphere, by increases in longwave, latent and sensible heat loss from open water areas. Outside of the coastal polynyas, the summertime warm anomaly leads to an average sea ice thinning of 1.7 cm across the region, and stimulates up to 20% additional seasonal melting near the fronts of ice shelves. The accompanying cold anomaly, caused by shading of deeper waters, persists year‐round and affects a decrease in the volume of Circumpolar Deep Water on the continental shelf. This cooling ultimately leads to an average sea ice thickening of 3.5 cm and, together with associated changes to circulation, reduces basal melting of Amundsen Sea ice shelves by approximately 7% relative to the model scenario with no phytoplankton bloom.
DOI: 10.1029/2024jc021121
Authors: A. G. Twelves, D. N. Goldberg, P. R. Holland, S. F. Henley, M. R. Mazloff, D. C. Jones
Institutions: Finnish Meteorological Institute, University of Edinburgh, British Antarctic Survey, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, University of Michigan, Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,880
Funders: National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, UK Research and Innovation, Strong, Sight Research UK, Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, Natural Environment Research Council
Awards: G1360416883, G1408479174, G1695392763, Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM2), G2121996256, G2364907577, G3632752862, G4082535673, Collaborative Research: Diagnosing the Role of Ocean Eddies in Carbon Cycling from a High-resolution Data Assimilating Ocean Biogeochemical Model, G4884561909, G524649112, Collaborative Research: Deep Madagascar Basin (DMB) Experiment: A Quest to Find the Abyssal Water Pathways in the Southwest Indian Ocean, G5511161228, G6393449554, G6893308650, G7110585771, G7214365112, E3 - Edinburgh Earth and Environment - Doctoral Training Partnership, G7453515608, NSFPLR-NERC: Processes, drivers, predictions: Modeling the response of Thwaites Glacier over the next century using ice/ocean coupled models, Isotopic characterisation of nutrient dynamics and UCDW behaviour in the west Antarctic Peninsula sea ice environment, Collaborative Research: Constraining the Role of the Antarctic Slope Current on Tracer Exchange at the Antarctic Margin using Model Hierarchies
OpenAlex ID: W4402573462
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