Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

East Antarctic Ice Shelf – Meltwater Produced by Interaction between wind and albedo stored in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet

Disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves (1,2) can ultimately result from surface melt and subsequent depletion of firn air, which causes the acceleration of grounding line glaciers (3) and rising sea level. Foehn winds enhance melting near the grounding line (4) in the Antarctic Peninsula which has led to the disintegration of the most northerly ice shelves in the recent past (5,6). I this paper Lenaerts, et al. provide observational and model evidence that this process also occurs over an East Antarctica Ice Shelf, where meltwater induced firn air depletion is found in the grounding zone.

Sources & Further reading

1. Lenaerts, J. T. M., S. Lhermitte, R. Drews, S. R. M. Ligtenberg, S. Berger, V. Helm, C. J. P. P. Smeets, M. R. v. d. Broeke, W. J. van de Berg, E. van Meijgaard, M. Eijkelboom, O. Eisen and F. Pattyn (2016). "Meltwater produced by wind-albedo interaction stored in an East Antarctic ice shelf." Nature Clim. Change advance online publication.