Intense atmospheric rivers can weaken ice shelf stability at the Antarctic Peninsula

Present stability of the Larsen C ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula

We modelled the flow of the Larsen C and northernmost Larsen D ice shelves, Antarctic Peninsula, using a model of continuum mechanics of ice flow, and applied a fracture criterion to the simulated velocities to investigate the ice shelf’s present-day stability. Constraints come from satellite data and geophysical measurements from the 2008/09 austral summer. Ice-shelf thickness was derived from...

Ice shelf changes on the Antarctic Peninsula

Accelerated ice discharge from the Antarctic Peninsula following the collapse of Larsen B ice shelf

[1] Interferometric synthetic-aperture radar data collected by ERS-1/2 and Radarsat-1 satellites show that Antarctic Peninsula glaciers sped up significantly following the collapse of Larsen B ice shelf in 2002. Hektoria, Green and Evans glaciers accelerated eightfold between 2000 and 2003 and decelerated moderately in 2003. Jorum and Crane glaciers accelerated twofold in early 2003 and threefo...

Exposure-age record of Holocene ice sheet and ice shelf change in the northeast Antarctic Peninsula

This paper describes glacialegeologic observations and cosmogenic-nuclide exposure ages from ice-free areas adjacent to the Sjögren, Boydell, and Drygalski Glaciers of the northeast Antarctic Peninsula. These provide a record of Holocene glacier and ice shelf change in this region. Early Holocene ice surface elevation near the present coastline was locally at least 500 m above present sea level...

Community dynamics of nematodes after Larsen ice‐shelf collapse in the eastern Antarctic Peninsula

Free-living marine nematode communities of the Larsen B embayment at the eastern Antarctic Peninsula were investigated to provide insights on their response and colonization rate after large-scale ice-shelf collapse. This study compares published data on the post-collapse situation from 2007 with new material from 2011, focusing on two locations in the embayment that showed highly divergent com...