Wintertime polynya structure and variability from thermal remote sensing and seal-borne observations at Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica

Savidge, Elena, Snow, Tasha, Siegfried, Matthew R., Zheng, Yixi, Boas, Ana B.Villas, Bortolotto, Guilherme A., Boehme, Lars and Alley, Karen E. (2023) Wintertime polynya structure and variability from thermal remote sensing and seal-borne observations at Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 61. ISSN 0196-2892

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Abstract

Antarctica's ice shelves play a critical role in modulating ice loss to the ocean by buttressing grounded ice upstream. With the potential to impact ice-shelf stability, persistent polynyas (open-water areas surrounded by sea ice that occur across multiple years at the same location) at the edge of many ice-shelf fronts are maintained by winds and/or ocean heat and are locations of strong ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions. However, in situ observations of polynyas are sparse due to the logistical constraints of collecting Antarctic field measurements. Here, we used wintertime (May-August) temperature and salinity observations derived from seal-borne instruments deployed in 2014, 2019, and 2020, in conjunction with thermal imagery from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) to investigate spatial, temporal, and thermal structural variability of polynyas near Pine Island Glacier (PIG). Across the three winters considered, there were 176 anomalously warm ( 3 from background) seal dives near the PIG ice front, including 26 dives that coincided with MODIS images with minimal cloud cover that also showed a warm surface temperature anomaly. These warm surface temperatures correlated with ocean temperatures down to 150 m depth or deeper, depending on the year, suggesting that MODIS-derived surface thermal anomalies can be used for monitoring polynya presence and structure during polar night. The finer spatial resolution (100 m) of TIRS wintertime thermal imagery captures more detailed thermal structural variability within these polynyas, which may provide year-round insight into subice-shelf processes if this dataset is collected operationally.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding Information: This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation - Natural Environment Research Council (NSF-NERC) International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration: Thwaites-Amundsen Regional Survey and Network (ITGC: TARSAN) under grant NE/S006419/1 (NERC), grant NE/S00659/1 (NERC), and grant 1738992 (NSF); and in part by the NERC Ice Sheet Stability Programme (iSTAR) under grant NE/J005703/1. Publisher Copyright: © 1980-2012 IEEE.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ice-ocean interaction,landsat 8 thermal infrared sensor (tirs),moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (modis),persistent polynyas,thermal remote sensing,electrical and electronic engineering,earth and planetary sciences(all),sdg 14 - life below water ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2200/2208
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	22 Nov 2023 04:39
Last Modified:	27 Nov 2023 03:06
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/93718
DOI:	10.1109/TGRS.2023.3271453

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