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ToolsRichter, Maren Elisabeth, Leonard, Greg H., Smith, Inga J., Langhorne, Pat J. and Parry, Matthew (2024) The interannual variability of Antarctic fast-ice thickness in McMurdo Sound and connections to climate. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 129 (12). ISSN 2169-9275
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Abstract
Land-fast sea-ice (fast ice) in McMurdo Sound grows through heat loss to the atmosphere and through heat loss to the ocean due to the presence of supercooled water. In this paper, we present a fast-ice thickness data set covering 1986–2022, providing a baseline of interannual variability in fast-ice thickness. Fast ice thicknesses are related to atmospheric and oceanic drivers on monthly and seasonal timescales to provide one of the longest timeseries of drivers of interannual fast-ice thickness variability from high-quality, in situ observations. We select a 14 km by 20 km area of level fast-ice over which atmospheric and oceanic drivers have negligible spatial variation, allowing us to resolve temporal variability in drivers and thickness. A statistical significance testing approach is adopted which only considers drivers that have a plausible physical mechanism to influence fast-ice thickness. We demonstrate that the fast-ice cover in McMurdo Sound is thicker in years when surface air temperature is colder, average (southerly) wind speed is higher, and there are fewer southerly storms. Nonetheless, we show that monthly averaged drivers have limitations and often do not produce strong correlations with thickness or fast-ice persistence. Consequently, most of the variability in fast-ice thickness cannot be explained by a single driver. No long-term trend in fast-ice thickness was found in eastern McMurdo Sound, thickness being influenced by a combination of drivers. Future event-based analyses, relating storms to fast-ice persistence, are needed. The present study provides a baseline against which these extreme events and long-term trends can be assessed.
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| Additional Information: | Data Availability Statement: Thermistor data collected in McMurdo Sound in 2002 and 2003 were part of the project “Measurements and Improved Parameterization of the Thermal Conductivity and Heat Flow through First-Year Sea Ice,” OPP-0126007*. Data collected in 2009, 2010, and 2013 are available at the data repository PANGAEA (Gough et al., 2017a, 2017b; Smith, Leonard, Langhorne, et al., 2017; Smith, Leonard, Trodahl, et al., 2017). The thermistor data in McMurdo Sound collected after 2009 were collected with the following funding and logistics support: IRL Subcontract to the University of Otago (2010, 2011); University of Otago Research Grants (2010, 2011, 2014, 2015 (Event Manager: Inga Smith)); NIWA subcontract to University of Otago, “Antarctic and High Latitude Climate” (2013–2018); Contribution from MBIE-funded project “Antarctic sea ice thickness: harbinger of change in the Southern Ocean” (2013 (PIs: Pat Langhorne and Wolfgang Rack)); Contribution from MBIE-funded Curious Minds public engagement project “Far from Frozen” (2016, (leader: Craig Grant, Otago Museum)); US Fulbright Scholar Award (Cecilia Bitz, 2013); NZARI (2015 (PIs: Pat Langhorne and Craig Stevens), 2017, 2018 (PI: Greg Leonard)) Deep South National Science Challenge project TOPIMASI (2016–2018 (PI: Pat Langhorne)); Antarctic Science Platform (ASP) Project 4 (Sea ice and carbon cycles) (University of Otago sub-contract 19424 from VUW's ASP Project 4 contract with Antarctica New Zealand through MBIE SSIF Programmes Investment contract number ANTA1801.) (2019–2022 (Event Manager: Greg Leonard)); Marsden Fund project “Supercooling measurements under ice shelves” (2020 (PI: Inga Smith)) and will be made available through PANGAEA. The monthly mean thickness values calculated from the SIMS data and used in this study are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8353757 (Richter et al., 2023). The Circum-Antarctic landfast sea ice extent is available at https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/AAS_4116_Fraser_fastice_circumantarctic (Fraser & Massom, 2020). NIWA's National Climate Database on the Web (CliFlo) is available at https://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/, it was last accessed August 2022. The Marble Point weather station data is available at http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/data/ftp/pub/aws/antrdr/. We acknowledge Dr Gareth Marshall for the SAM data (Marshall, 2003), and the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction for the Niño 3.4 index data. SAM data downloaded June 2021 from http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/icd/gjma/sam.html. The Niño3.4 index was accessed in June 2021 through http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.Indices/.nino/.EXTENDED/.NINO34/datafiles.html. The unsmoothed, detrended AMO from the Kaplan SST V2 data set (Enfield et al., 2001) was calculated at NOAA PSL1 and is available at http://www.psl.noaa.gov/data/timeseries/AMO/, last accessed June 2021. The unfiltered IPO Tripole Index of Henley et al. (2015) based on ERSST V5 was created at NOAA PSL and is available at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/timeseries/IPOTPI/, last accessed June 2021. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | antarctic fast ice,mcmurdo sound,atmosphere sea-ice interactions,atmospheric drivers,fast-ice thickness,interannual variability,geochemistry and petrology,geophysics,oceanography,space and planetary science,earth and planetary sciences (miscellaneous) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900/1906 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Jan 2025 01:04 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Feb 2025 01:19 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98291 |
| DOI: | 10.1029/2023JC020134 |
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