Changes in flow of Crosson and Dotson ice shelves, West Antarctica, in response to elevated melt

Lilien, David A.; Joughin, Ian; Smith, Benjamin; Shean, David E.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1415-2018

Articles | Volume 12, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1415-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1415-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 4

Research article

|

19 Apr 2018

Research article |

| 19 Apr 2018

Changes in flow of Crosson and Dotson ice shelves, West Antarctica, in response to elevated melt

David A. Lilien, Ian Joughin, Benjamin Smith, and David E. Shean

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1415-2018-supplement

Data sets

NSIDC National Snow and Ice Data Center http://nsidc.org

Short summary

We used remotely sensed data and a numerical model to study the processes controlling the stability of two rapidly changing ice shelves in West Antarctica. Both these ice shelves have been losing mass since at least 1996, primarily as a result of ocean-forced melt. We find that this imbalance likely results from changes initiated around 1970 or earlier. Our results also show that the shelves’ differing speedup is controlled by the strength of their margins and their grounding-line positions.