Antarctic Ice shelf instability due to meltwater linked to wind-albedo interaction

14 February 2017:

Writing in Nature Climate Change, Jan Lenaerts and colleagues report on accumulations of meltwater on an East Antarctic Ice Shelf and attribute the discovery to winds flowing from the Antarctic Interior to the coast. These katabatic winds, a density-driven flow of air from the high altitude Antarctic interior to the coast, warm as they descend. The katabatic flow also scours the surface snow, exposing glacier ice. As glacier ice is darker than snow, it acts to absorb rather than reflect solar radiation, producing lower surface albedo and causing further melting. These processes identify greater vulnerability of the ice shelves than previously thought.

J. T. M. Lenaerts, S. Lhermitte, R. Drews, S. R. M. Ligtenberg, S. Berger, V. Helm, C. J. P. P. Smeets, M. R. van den Broeke, W. J. van de Berg, E. van Meijgaard, M. Eijkelboom, O. Eisen & F. Pattyn, “Meltwater produced by wind–albedo interaction stored in an East Antarctic ice shelf”, Nature Climate Change 7, 58–62 (2017) doi:10.1038/nclimate3180