title: Channelized ice melting in the ocean boundary layer beneath Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica.
abstract: Ice shelves play a key role in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheets by buttressing their seaward-flowing outlet glaciers; however, they are exposed to the underlying ocean and may weaken if ocean thermal forcing increases. An expedition to the ice shelf of the remote Pine Island Glacier, a major outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that has rapidly thinned and accelerated in recent decades, has been completed. Observations from geophysical surveys and long-term oceanographic instruments deployed down bore holes into the ocean cavity reveal a buoyancy-driven boundary layer within a basal channel that melts the channel apex by 0.06 meter per day, with near-zero melt rates along the flanks of the channel. A complex pattern of such channels is visible throughout the Pine Island Glacier shelf.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oceanography, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943, USA. stanton@nps.edu
authors.forename: T P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Stanton
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Truffer
authors.forename: H F J
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Corr
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: K L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Riverman
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bindschadler
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Holland
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Anandakrishnan
mesh_terms: D000864:Antarctic Regions; D005615:Freezing; D046448:Ice Cover; D009792:Oceans and Seas