Journal
SCIENCE ADVANCES
Volume 4, Issue 6, Pages -Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao7212
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Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [RGPIN-03761-2017]
- Canada Research Chairs Program [950-231237]
- Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries [PM17020]
- NSF [ANT-0733025, PLR-1543452, PLR-1043761, PLR-1341688]
- G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation
- Jackson School of Geosciences
- NASA Postdoctoral Program at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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Ice shelves control sea-level rise through frictional resistance, which slows the seaward flow of grounded glacial ice. Evidence from around Antarctica indicates that ice shelves are thinning and weakening, primarily driven by warm ocean water entering into the shelf cavities. We have identified a mechanism for ice shelf destabilization where basal channels underneath the shelves cause ice thinning that drives fracture perpendicular to flow. These channels also result in ice surface deformation, which diverts supraglacial rivers into the transverse fractures. We report direct evidence that a major 2016 calving event at Nansen Ice Shelf in the Ross Sea was the result of fracture driven by such channelized thinning and demonstrate that similar basal channel-driven transverse fractures occur elsewhere in Greenland and Antarctica. In the event of increased basal and surface melt resulting from rising ocean and air temperatures, ice shelves will become increasingly vulnerable to these tandem effects of basal channel destabilization.
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