An official website of the United States government
Abstract. Antarctic ice shelves buttress the flow of the ice sheet but are vulnerable to increased basal melting from contact with a warming ocean and increased mass loss from calving due to changing flow patterns. Channels and similar features at the bases of ice shelves have been linked to enhanced basal melting and observed to intersect the grounding zone, where the greatest melt rates are often observed. The ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier is especially vulnerable to basal melt and grounding zone retreat because the glacier has a retrograde bed leading to a deep trough below the grounded ice sheet. We use digital surface models from 2010–2022 to investigate the evolution of its ice-shelf channels, grounding zone position, and the interactions between them. We find that the highest sustained rates of grounding zone retreat (up to 0.7 km yr−1) are associated with high basal melt rates (up to ∼250 m yr−1) and are found where ice-shelf channels intersect the grounding zone, especially atop steep local retrograde slopes where subglacial channel discharge is expected. We find no areas with sustained grounding zone advance, although some secular retreat was distal from ice-shelf channels. Pinpointing other locations with similar risk factors could focus assessments of vulnerability to grounding zone retreat.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on March 14, 2026
Deep learning the flow law of Antarctic ice shelves
Antarctic ice shelves buttress the grounded ice sheet, mitigating global sea level rise. However, fundamental mechanical properties, such as the ice flow law and viscosity structure, remain under debate. In this work, by leveraging remote-sensing data and physics-informed deep learning, we provide evidence over several ice shelves that the flow law follows a grain size–sensitive composite rheology in the compression zone. In the extension zone, we found that ice exhibits anisotropic properties. We constructed ice shelf–wide anisotropic viscosity maps that capture the suture zones, which inhibit rift propagation. The inferred stress exponent near the grounding zone dictates the grounding-line ice flux and grounding line stability, whereas the inferred viscosity maps inform the prediction of rifts. Both are essential for predicting the future mass loss of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2245228
- PAR ID:
- 10599274
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (United States)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science
- Volume:
- 387
- Issue:
- 6739
- ISSN:
- 0036-8075
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1219 to 1224
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract Between 1992 and 2017, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) lost ice equivalent to 7.6 ± 3.9 mm of sea level rise. AIS mass loss is mitigated by ice shelves that provide a buttress by regulating ice flow from tributary glaciers. However, ice‐shelf stability is threatened by meltwater ponding, which may initiate, or reactivate preexisting, fractures, currently poorly understood processes. Here, through ground penetrating radar (GPR) analysis over a buried lake in the grounding zone of an East Antarctic ice shelf, we present the first field observations of a lake drainage event in Antarctica via vertical fractures. Concurrent with the lake drainage event, we observe a decrease in surface elevation and an increase in Sentinel‐1 backscatter. Finally, we suggest that fractures that are initiated or reactivated by lake drainage events in a grounding zone will propagate with ice flow onto the ice shelf itself, where they may have implications for its stability.more » « less
-
Many floating ice shelves in Antarctica buttress the ice streams feeding them, thereby reducing the discharge of icebergs into the ocean. The rate at which ice shelves calve icebergs and how fast they flow determine whether they advance, retreat, or remain stable, exerting a first-order control on ice discharge. To parameterize calving within ice sheet models, several empirical and physical calving “laws” have been proposed in the past few decades. Such laws emphasize dissimilar features, including along- and across-flow strain rates (the eigencalving law), a fracture yield criterion (the von Mises law), longitudinal stretching (the crevasse depth law), and a simple ice thickness threshold (the minimum thickness law), among others. Despite the multitude of established calving laws, these laws remain largely unvalidated for the Antarctic Ice Sheet, rendering it difficult to assess the broad applicability of any given law in Antarctica. We address this shortcoming through a set of numerical experiments that evaluate existing calving laws for 10 ice shelves around the Antarctic Ice Sheet. We utilize the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) and implement four calving laws under constant external forcing, calibrating the free parameter of each of these calving laws for each ice shelf by assuming that the current position of the ice front is in steady state and finding the set of parameters that best achieves this position over a simulation of 200 years. We find that, in general, the eigencalving and von Mises laws best reproduce observed calving front positions under the steady-state position assumption. These results will streamline future modeling efforts of Antarctic ice shelves by better informing the relevant physics of Antarctic-style calving on a shelf-by-shelf basis.more » « less
-
Abstract. Many floating ice shelves in Antarctica buttress the ice streams feeding them, thereby reducing the discharge of icebergs into the ocean. The rate at which ice shelves calve icebergs and how fast they flow determines whether they advance, retreat, or remain stable, exerting a first-order control on ice discharge. To parameterize calving within ice sheet models, several empirical and physical calving “laws” have been proposed in the past few decades. Such laws emphasize dissimilar features, including along- and across-flow strain rates (the eigencalving law), a fracture yield criterion (the von Mises law), longitudinal stretching (the crevasse depth law), and a simple ice thickness threshold (the minimum thickness law), among others. Despite the multitude of established calving laws, these laws remain largely unvalidated for the Antarctic Ice Sheet, rendering it difficult to assess the broad applicability of any given law in Antarctica. We address this shortcoming through a set of numerical experiments that evaluate existing calving laws for ten ice shelves around the Antarctic Ice Sheet. We utilize the Ice-sheet and Sea-level System Model (ISSM) and implement four calving laws under constant external forcing, calibrating the free parameter of each of these calving laws by assuming that the current position of the ice front is in steady state and finding the set of parameters that best achieves this position over a simulation of 200 years. We find that, in general, the eigencalving and von Mises laws best reproduce observed calving front positions under the steady state position assumption. These results will streamline future modeling efforts of Antarctic ice shelves by better informing the relevant physics of Antarctic-style calving on a shelf-by-shelf basis.more » « less
-
Abstract Geological records of ice sheet collapse can provide perspective on the ongoing retreat of grounded and floating ice. An abrupt retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) that occurred during the early deglaciation is well recorded on the eastern Ross Sea continental shelf. There, an ice shelf breakup at 12.3 ± 0.6 cal. (calibrated) kyr BP caused accelerated ice-mass loss from the Bindschadler Ice Stream (BIS). The accelerated mass loss led to a significant negative mass balance that re-organized WAIS flow across the central and eastern Ross Sea. By ~ 11.5 ± 0.3 cal kyr BP, dynamic thinning of grounded ice triggered a retreat that opened a ~ 200-km grounding-line embayment on the Whales Deep Basin (WDB) middle continental shelf. Here, we reconstruct the pattern, duration and rate of retreat from a backstepping succession of small-scale grounding-zone ridges that formed on the embayment’s eastern flank. We used two end-member paleo-sediment fluxes, i.e., accumulation rates, to convert the cumulative sediment volumes of the ridge field to elapsed time for measured distances of grounding-line retreat. The end-members fluxes correspond to deposition rates for buttressed and unbuttressed ice stream flow. Both scenarios require sustained rapid retreat that exceeded several centuries. Grounding-line retreat is estimated to have averaged between ~ 100 ± 32 and ~ 700 ± 79 ma−1. The evidence favors the latter scenario because iceberg furrows that cross cut the ridges in deep water require weakly buttressed flow as the embayment opened. In comparison with the modern grounding-zone dynamics, this paleo-perspective provides confidence in model projections that a large-scale sustained contraction of grounded ice is underway in several Pacific-Ocean sectors of the WAIS.more » « less
