The impact of tides on Antarctic ice shelf melting

Richter, Ole; Gwyther, David E.; King, Matt A.; Galton-Fenzi, Benjamin K.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1409-2022

Articles | Volume 16, issue 4

The Cryosphere, 16, 1409–1429, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1409-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

The Cryosphere, 16, 1409–1429, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1409-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 4

Research article

21 Apr 2022

Research article | 21 Apr 2022

The impact of tides on Antarctic ice shelf melting

Ole Richter et al.

Data sets

Data from: Data from: Tidal Modulation of Antarctic Ice Shelf Melting Ole Richter https://doi.org/10.25959/5eeccb497aedf

Model code and software

kuechenrole/waom: Whole Antarctic Ocean Model (v1.0.0) Ole Richter https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3738985

kuechenrole/antarctic_melting: Post- and preprocessing tools for the ROMS Whole Antarctic Ocean Model (v1.0.0) Ole Richter https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3738998

Short summary

Tidal currents may play an important role in Antarctic ice sheet retreat by changing the rate at which the ocean melts glaciers. Here, using a computational ocean model, we derive the first estimate of present-day tidal melting that covers all of Antarctica. Our results suggest that large-scale ocean models aiming to accurately predict ice melt rates will need to account for the effects of tides. The inclusion of tide-induced friction at the ice–ocean interface should be prioritized.