The instability of Antarctic ice shelves is one of the most critical open questions in polar science, due to its capacity to drive rapid sea level change at – and beyond – current high-end climate projections. Yet forecasting future instability is notoriously difficult because of the complex, non-linear forcing mechanisms controlling an ice shelf’s response, …
Understanding the processes driving ice-ocean interactions and their timescale is pivotal in getting a full picture of the Antarctic sensitivity to future climate variability. A recently published study measured 2018-2019 increased speed and discharge of ice and calving front retreat for the Cadman Glacier, and highlighted correlation to a positive temperature anomaly in the upper …
New research, utilizing data from ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 and CryoSat satellite missions, offers a stark view of the state of Antarctica’s ice shelves. Over the last 25 years, 40% of these vital floating extensions of the continent’s ice sheet have significantly diminished in volume, releasing approximately 67 trillion tonnes of meltwater into the ocean. This …
Southern Ocean Freshwater (SO Fresh) is a recent ESA funded project (2021-2023) included in the Polar Cluster Initiative. Polar Cluster aims at establishing collaboration with the existing projects in polar areas to put into value of unique, added-value capabilities from ESA missions and remote sensing missions in general. SO FRESH goals are to improve our …
Since the 1970s, spatial imagery has allowed to witness dramatic changes in sea ice extension and distribution. However, the sea ice thickness (SIT), which is a fundamental variable to understand and predict sea ice dynamics, is still insufficiently observed. So far, the only possibility to observe the sea ice freeboard (the sea ice emerged part …
Pronounced climatic changes have been observed at the Antarctic Peninsula within the past decades and its glaciers and ice caps have been identified as a significant contributor to global sea level rise. Dynamic thinning and speed-up was reported for various tidewater glaciers on the western Antarctic Peninsula. On the east coast, several ice shelves disintegrated …
The ALBATROSS Project (ALtimetry for BAthymetry and Tide Retrievals for the Southern Ocean, Sea ice and ice Shelves) , led by NOVELTIS in collaboration with DTU, NPI and UCL, is one of the activities funded by ESA in the frame of the Polar Science Cluster, with the objective to foster collaborative research and interdisciplinary networking …
The overarching objective of this activity is to explore the potential of GOCE to improve lithospheric modelling over Antarctica, to reduce uncertainties in bedrock topography and to study the implication on GIA modelling based on the derived information. This ismotivated by recent scientific developments, applications and new products that have emerged from ESA’s GOCE mission. …
Why has Antarctic sea ice experienced a small increase in extent over the past decades in stark contrast to the rapid decline observed in the Arctic? What role are the Southern Ocean and sea ice playing in controlling the Deep Water formation and thermohaline circulation and the melting of the Antarctic ice shelves and sea …
Lack of in-situ measurements of ice temperature (boreholes) limit our capabilities to understand ice sheet dynamics. Researchers combined L-band (1.4 GHz) passive microwave observations from SMOS over Antarctica with glaciological and emission models to infer information on glaciological properties of the ice sheet at various depths, including temperature. Comparison with existing models showed that differences …
