NSFPLR-NERC: Thwaites-Amundsen Regional Survey and Network (TARSAN)

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Thwaites and neighboring glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) are rapidly losing mass in response to recent climate warming and related changes in ocean circulation. Ice-sheet models suggest that the mass loss from the ASE will further accelerate in the near future, initiating an eventual collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), raising the global sea level by up to 2.5 meters in as short as 500 years. Such model predictions, however, are still lacking spatially and temporally detailed understanding of the dominant processes at and near grounding zones and the atmospheric and oceanic drivers of these processes. The proposed project aims to constrain these dominant processes affecting the Thwaites and the Dotson Ice Shelves, as well as the grounded ice mass buttressed by these ice shelves. Specific objectives are: 1) to install atmosphere-ice-ocean multi-sensor remote autonomous stations (AMIGOS) on the ice shelves for two years to provide sub-daily continuous observations of concurrent oceanic, glaciologic, and atmospheric conditions; 2) measure ocean properties on the continental shelf adjacent to the ice-shelf fronts (using seal tagging, glider-based and ship-based surveys and existing moored and CTD-cast data) and into the sub-ice-shelf cavities (using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles AUVs) to detail ocean transports and heat fluxes affecting the ice-shelf base; and 3) constrain the current ice-shelf and sub-ice-shelf cavity geometry, ice flow, and firn properties for the two ice-shelf sites (using radar, active-source seismic and gravimetric methods) to better understand the impact of ocean and atmosphere on the ice-sheet change.