Revisiting Ice Flux and Mass Balance of the Lambert Glacier–Amery Ice Shelf System Using Multi-Remote-Sensing Datasets, East Antarctica

Due to rapid global warming, the relationship between the mass loss of the Antarctic ice sheet and rising sea levels are attracting widespread attention. The Lambert–Amery glacial system is the largest drainage system in East Antarctica, and its mass balance has an important influence on the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet. In this paper, the recent ice flux in the Lambert Glacier of the Lambert–Amery system was systematically analyzed based on recently updated remote sensing data. According to Landsat-8 ice velocity data from 2018 to April 2019 and the updated Bedmachine v2 ice thickness dataset in 2021, the contribution of ice flux approximately 140 km downstream from Dome A in the Lambert Glacier area to downstream from the glacier is 8.5 ± 1.9, and the ice flux in the middle of the convergence region is 18.9 ± 2.9. The ice mass input into the Amery ice shelf through the grounding line of the whole glacier is 19.9 ± 1.3. The ice flux output from the mainstream area of the grounding line is 19.3 ± 1.0. Using the annual SMB data of the regional atmospheric climate model (RACMO v2.3) as the quality input, the mass balance of the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Lambert Glacier was analyzed. The results show that recent positive accumulation appears in the middle region of the glacier (about 74–78°S, 67–85°E) and the net accumulation of the whole glacier is 2.4 ± 3.5. Although the mass balance of the Lambert Glacier continues to show a positive accumulation, and the positive value in the region is decreasing compared with values obtained in early 2000.

Grounding Event of Iceberg D28 and Its Interactions with Seabed Topography

Iceberg D28, a giant tabular iceberg that calved from Amery Ice Shelf in September 2019, grounded off Kemp Coast, East Antarctica, from August to September of 2020. The motion of the iceberg is characterized herein by time-series images captured by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on Sentinel-1 and the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) boarded on Terra from 6 August to 15 September 2020. The thickness of iceberg D28 was estimated by utilizing data from altimeters on Cryosat-2, Sentinel-3, and ICESat-2. By using the iceberg draft and grounding point locations inferred from its motion, the maximum water depths at grounding points were determined, varying from 221.72 ± 21.77 m to 269.42 ± 25.66 m. The largest disagreements in seabed elevation inferred from the grounded iceberg and terrain models from the Bedmap2 and BedMachine datasets were over 570 m and 350 m, respectively, indicating a more complicated submarine topography in the study area than that presented by the existing seabed terrain models. Wind and sea water velocities from reanalysis products imply that the driving force from sea water is a more dominant factor than the wind in propelling iceberg D28 during its grounding, which is consistent with previous findings on iceberg dynamics.

Automated mapping of the seasonal evolution of surface meltwater and its links to climate on the Amery Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Surface meltwater is widespread around the Antarctic Ice Sheet margin and has the potential to influence ice shelf stability, ice flow and ice–albedo feedbacks. Our understanding of the seasonal and multi-year evolution of Antarctic surface meltwater is limited. Attempts to generate robust meltwater cover time series have largely been constrained by computational expense or limited ice surface visibility associated with mapping from optical satellite imagery. Here, we add a novel method for calculating visibility metrics to an existing meltwater detection method within Google Earth Engine. This enables us to quantify uncertainty induced by cloud cover and variable image data coverage, allowing time series of surface meltwater area to be automatically generated over large spatial and temporal scales. We demonstrate our method on the Amery Ice Shelf region of East Antarctica, analysing 4164 Landsat 7 and 8 optical images between 2005 and 2020. Results show high interannual variability in surface meltwater cover, with mapped cumulative lake area totals ranging from 384 to 3898 km2 per melt season. By incorporating image visibility assessments, however, we estimate that cumulative total lake areas are on average 42 % higher than minimum mapped values. We show that modelled melt predictions from a regional climate model provide a good indication of lake cover in the Amery region and that annual lake coverage is typically highest in years with a negative austral summer SAM index. Our results demonstrate that our method could be scaled up to generate a multi-year time series record of surface water extent from optical imagery at a continent-wide scale.

Understanding of an Iceberg Breaking Off Event Based on Ice-Front Motion Analysis of Amery Ice Shelf, Antarctica

On 26 September 2019, a massive iceberg broke off the west side of the Amery Ice Shelf (AIS) in East Antarctica. Since 1973, the AIS calving front has steadily advanced at a rate of 1.0 km yr−1. However, the advancement rate of the central portion of the AIS increased dramatically during 2012–2015, which indicates a velocity increase prior to the calving event. Eight calving front locations from 1973 to 2018 were mapped to investigate the advancement rate of AIS over the entire observational period. Additionally, the propagation of rift A was observed unstable from 2012 to 2015. The westward propagation rate of rift A1 increased to 3.7 km yr−1 from 2015 to 2017, which was considerably faster than the other rifts near the AIS calving front. The increased advancement rate and the increasing propagation magnitude of at least one active rift appear to be precursors of this large calving event.

Evaluation of six geothermal heat flux maps for the Antarctic Lambert-Amery glacial system

Basal thermal conditions play an important role in ice sheet dynamics, and they are sensitive to geothermal heat flux (GHF). Here we estimate the basal thermal conditions, including basal temperature, basal melt rate, and friction heat underneath the Lambert-Amery glacier system in east Antarctica, using a combination of a forward model and an inversion from a 3D ice flow model. We assess the sensitivity and uncertainty of basal thermal conditions using six different GHFs. We evaluate the modelled results using all available observed subglacial lakes. There are very large differences in modelled spatial pattern of temperate basal conditions using the different GHFs. The two most-recent GHF fields inverted from aerial geomagnetic observations have higher values of GHF in the region, produce a larger warm-based area, and match the observed subglacial lakes better than the other GHFs. The fast flowing glacier region has a lower modelled basal friction coefficient, faster basal velocity, with higher basal frictional heating in the range of 50–2000 mW m−2 than the base under slower flowing glaciated areas. The modelled basal melt rate reaches ten to hundreds of mm per year locally in Lambert, Lepekhin and Kronshtadtskiy glaciers feeding the Amery ice shelf, and ranges from 0–5 mm yr−1 on the temperate base of the vast inland region.

Evaluation of basal melting parameterisations using in situ ocean and melting observations from the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica

Ocean driven melting of Antarctic ice shelves is causing grounded ice to be lost from the Antarctic continent at an accelerating rate. However, the ocean processes governing ice shelf melting are not well understood, contributing to uncertainty in projections of Antarctica's contribution to sea level. Here, we analyse oceanographic data and in situ measurements of ice shelf melt collected from an instrumented mooring beneath the centre of the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica. This is the first direct measurement of basal melting from the Amery Ice Shelf, and was made through the novel application of an upwards-facing Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP). ADCP data were also used to map a region of the ice base, revealing a steep topographic feature or “scarp” in the ice with vertical and horizontal scales of ~20 m and ~40 m respectively. The annually-averaged ADCP-derived melt rate of 0.51 ± 0.18 m yr−1 is consistent with previous modelling results and glaciological estimates, and there is significant seasonal variation in melting with a maximum in May and a minimum in September. Melting is driven by temperatures ~0.2 °C above the local freezing point and background and tidal currents, which have typical speeds of ~3.0 cm s−1 and 10.0 cm s−1 respectively. We use the coincident measurements of ice shelf melt and oceanographic forcing to evaluate parameterisations of ice-ocean interactions, and find that parameterisations in which there is an explicit dependence of the melt rate on current speed beneath the ice tend to overestimate the local melt rate at AM06 by between 200 % and 400 %, depending on the choice of drag coefficient. A convective parameterisation in which melting is a function of the slope of the ice base is also evaluated and is shown to under-predict melting by 20 % at this site. Using available observations from other ice shelves, we show that a common current speed-dependent parameterisation overestimates melting at all but the coldest, most energetic cavity conditions.

Analysis of Temporal and Spatial Variability of Fronts on the Amery Ice Shelf Automatically Detected Using Sentinel-1 SAR Data

The Amery Ice Shelf (AIS) dynamics and mass balance caused by iceberg calving and basal melting are significant in the ocean climate system. Using satellite imagery from Sentinel-1 SAR, we monitored the temporal and spatial variability of the frontal positions on the Amery Ice Shelf, Antarctica, from 2015 to 2021. In this paper, we propose an automatic algorithm based on the SO-CFAR strategy and a profile cumulative method for frontal line extraction. To improve the accuracy of the extracted frontal lines, we developed a framework combining the Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) and morphological image-processing strategies. A visual comparison between the proposed algorithm and state-of-the-art algorithm shows that our algorithm is effective in these cases including rifts, icebergs, and crevasses as well as ice-shelf surface structures. We present a detailed analysis of the temporal and spatial variability of fronts on AIS that we find, an advance of the AIS frontal line before the D28 calving event, and a continuous advance after the event. The study reveals that the AIS extent has been advanced at the rate of 1015 m/year. Studies have shown that the frontal location of AIS has continuously expanded. From March 2015 to May 2021, the frontal location of AIS expanded by 6.5 km; while the length of the AIS frontal line is relatively different after the D28 event, the length of the frontal line increased by about 7.5% during 2015 and 2021 (255.03 km increased to 273.5 km). We found a substantial increase in summer advance rates and a decrease in winter advance rates with the seasonal characteristics. We found this variability of the AIS frontal line to be in good agreement with the ice flow velocity.

Thermal structure of the Amery Ice Shelf from borehole observations and simulations

The Amery Ice Shelf (AIS), East Antarctica, has a layered structure, due to the presence of both meteoric and marine ice. In this study, the thermal structure of the AIS and its spatial pattern are evaluated and analysed through borehole observations and numerical simulations. In the area with marine ice, a near-isothermal basal layer up to 120 m thick is observed, which closely conforms to the pressure-dependent freezing temperature of seawater. In the area experiencing basal melting, large temperature gradients, up to −0.36 °C m−1, are observed at the base. Three-dimensional (3-D) steady-state temperature simulations with four different basal mass balance datasets reveal a high sensitivity of ice-shelf thermal structure to the distribution of basal mass balance. We also construct a one-dimensional (1-D) temperature column model to simulate the process of ice columns moving along flowlines with time-evolving boundary conditions, which achieves slightly better agreement with borehole observations than the 3-D simulations. Our simulations reveal internal cold ice advected from higher elevations by the AIS’s tributary glaciers, warming downstream along the ice flow, and we suggest the thermal structures dominated by the cold core ice may commonly exist among Antarctic ice shelves. For the marine ice, the porous structure of its lower layer and interactions with ocean below determine the local thermal regime and give rise to the near-isothermal phenomenon. The limitations in our simulations identify the need for ice shelf/ocean coupled models with improved thermodynamics and more comprehensive evaluation of boundary conditions. Given the temperature dependence of ice rheology, the depth-averaged ice stiffness factor B(Th) derived from the simulated temperature field is presented to quantify the influence of the temperature distribution on ice shelf dynamics. The full 3-D field of this factor will assist as an input to future modelling studies.

Automated mapping of the seasonal evolution of surface meltwater and its links to climate on the Amery Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Surface meltwater is widespread around the margin of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and has the potential to influence ice-shelf stability, ice-dynamic processes and ice-albedo feedbacks. Whilst the general spatial distribution of surface meltwater across the Antarctic continent is now relatively well known, our understanding of the seasonal and multi-year evolution of surface meltwater is limited. Attempts to generate robust time series of melt cover have largely been constrained by computational expense or limited ice surface visibility associated with mapping from optical satellite imagery. Here, we implement an existing meltwater detection method alongside a novel method for calculating visibility metrics within Google Earth Engine. This enables us to quantify uncertainty induced by cloud cover and variable image data coverage, allowing us to automatically generate time series of surface melt area over large spatial and temporal scales. We demonstrate our method on the Amery Ice Shelf region of East Antarctica, analysing 4,164 Landsat 7 and 8 optical images between 2005 and 2020. Results show high interannual variability in surface meltwater cover, with mapped cumulative lake area totals ranging from 384 km2 to 3898 km2 per melt season. However, by incorporating image visibility assessments into our results, we estimate that cumulative total lake areas are on average 42 % higher than minimum mapped values, highlighting the importance of accounting for variations in image visibility when mapping lake areas. In a typical melt season, total lake area remains low throughout November and early December, before increasing, on average, by an order of magnitude during the second half of December. Peak lake area most commonly occurs during January, before decreasing during February as lakes freeze over. We show that modelled melt predictions from a regional climate model provides a good indication of lake cover in the Amery region, and that annual lake coverage is strongly associated with phases of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM); surface melt is typically highest in years with a negative austral summer SAM index. Furthermore, we suggest that melt-albedo feedbacks modulate the spatial distribution of meltwater in the region, with the exposure of blue ice from persistent katabatic wind scouring influencing the susceptibility of melt ponding. Results demonstrate how our method could be scaled up to generate a multi-year time series record of surface water extent from optical imagery at a continent-wide scale.