Coastal complexity of the Antarctic continent

Abstract. The Antarctic outer coastal margin (i.e. the coastline itself or terminus front of ice shelves, whichever is adjacent to ocean) a key interface between sheet and terrestrial environments Southern Ocean. Its physical configuration (including both length scale variation, orientation, aspect) has direct bearing on several closely associated cryospheric, biological, oceanographical, ecological processes, yet no study quantified complexity orientation Antarctica's margin. This first-of-a-kind characterization aims address this knowledge gap. We quantify investigate circumpolar using novel technique based ? 40 000 random points selected along vector derived from MODIS Mosaic Antarctica dataset. At each point, metric calculated at scales 1 256 km, giving multiscale estimate magnitude direction undulation point location entire coastline. Using cluster analysis determine characteristic “signatures” for nodes, found comprise three basic groups classes: (i) low all scales, (ii) most shorter (iii) longer scales. These classes are somewhat heterogeneously distributed throughout continent. also consider bays peninsulas separately characterize their orientation. unique dataset its summary have numerous applications geophysical biological studies. All these data referenced by https://doi.org/10.26179/5d1af0ba45c03 (Porter-Smith et al., 2019) available free charge http://data.antarctica.gov.au (last access: 7 June 2021).