Shelf ice - ocean dynamics and their interaction in the vicinity of ice rumples: A coupled 3D-model and application to selected Antarctic regions

通过近十年来南极半岛拉森冰架的崩塌，众所周知，冰架对气候变化的反应非常敏感。冰架的稳定性取决于海湾的存在，并在很大程度上受到冰升和作为固定点的冰皱的影响。由于其较小的空间范围，冰皱对气候变化的反应比冰升更敏感。这项研究将阐明冰皱在气候变化对南极冰架影响的背景下所起的作用。表面堆积的增加可能会导致冰架增厚，从而使冰架状况更加稳定，而海洋变暖和表面温度上升可能会导致冰架变薄。此外，由于冰架底部和基岩之间接触条件的变化，海平面上升可能导致完全解体。本项目致力于调查这四个过程的综合影响。我们的全面调查将包括冰隆起附近的所有组件：冰架、海洋和冰层部分。我们将改进和耦合现有的三个分别用于冰体、冰架和海洋的数值模式。由此产生的一揽子模型将在不同合理的气候情景下应用于韦德尔区或罗斯海地区的选定区域。将与以前的非耦合模型的结果进行比较。

By the Larsen Ice Shelf collapse at the Antarctic Peninsula during the last decade, it is well-known that ice shelves react sensitively to climate change. The stability of ice shelves depends on the existence of embayments and is largely influenced by ice rises and ice rumples acting as pinning points. Due to their smaller spatial extent, ice rumples react more sensitively to climate change than ice rises. This study will elucidate the role of ice rumples in the context of climate change impacts on Antarctic ice shelves. An increased surface accumulation will probably lead to thickening and thus more stable conditions of the ice shelves, while ocean warming and increasing surface temperatures will presumably lead to thinning ice shelves. In addition, sea-level rise can cause a total disintegration as a result of changed conditions at the contact between ice-shelf base and bedrock. This project strives to investigate the combined effects of these four processes. Our comprehensive investigation will include all components in the vicinity of an ice rumple: the ice shelf, the ocean and the grounded ice portion. We will improve and couple three existing numerical models for grounded ice bodies, ice shelves, and ocean, respectively. The resulting model package will be applied to selected regions of the Weddell or Ross Sea sector under different plausible climate scenarios. A comparison to results of previous uncoupled models will be carried out.