Mass Balance Assessment of the Amery Ice Shelf Basin, East Antarctica

Abstract

The Lambert Glacier-Amery Ice Shelf (AIS) System is the largest glacial system in East Antarctica. Accurate estimation of its mass balance is imperative for reducing the uncertainty in evaluating the sea-level contribution from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here, we present a comprehensive investigation of the mass balance of the AIS basin. We measured the ice velocity with Sentinel-1 synthetic-aperture radar data acquired in 2016. The ice thickness data from the radio echo-sounding measurements were combined with the surface mass balance data from the new Regional Atmospheric Climate Model, from which the mass balance of the AIS basin was estimated. Our estimates suggest a slight positive mass balance of 3.1 ± 9.4 Gt/year in 2016. We found that the short-term fluctuations in the surface mass balance dramatically affect the AIS mass balance. A comparison with previous estimates confirms the long-term positive mass balance trend.

CloudSat Observations Show Enhanced Moisture Transport Events Increase Snowfall Rate and Frequency Over Antarctic Ice Sheet Basins

“…Island Eastern Ice Shelf glaciers could further contribute to accelerated sea level rise through a loss of buttressing ice in the Amundsen Sea embayment (Bassis & Walker, 2012;Benn et al, 2022;DeConto & Pollard, 2016;Scambos et al, 2017). By contrast, portions of the AIS surrounding the Lambert Glacier-Amery Ice Shelf system in East Antarctica show a slightly positive mass balance seen in observations and modeling (Pittard et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2022;Zhou et al, 2019). The Lambert Glacier-Amery Ice Shelf system covers 16% of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and the ice flux through the terminus of the Amery Ice Shelf is an important regulator of the mass balance of the ice sheet (Fricker et al, 2000).…”

Extraction and Analysis of the Three-Dimensional Features of Crevasses in the Amery Ice Shelf Based on ICESat-2 ATL06 Data

“…The width of the AIS increases from 40 km at the grounding line to~200 km at the leading edge of the ice shelf, with an ice flow of 350 -1700 m/a. At present, the material state of Amery Ice Shelf is in a weak positive balance as a whole [17]. The ice front directly contacts and interacts with the ocean, causing the ice shelf to continuously deliver a large amount of low-temperature freshwater to the ocean, which plays an important role in controlling water mass formation and ocean circulation.…”

57-Year Ice Velocity Dynamics in Byrd Glacier Based on Multisource Remote Sensing Data

“…With the launch of the Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 satellites, it has become possible to map the ice velocities for the majority of the AIS [6], [9]. Thousands of Landsat-8 images have been collected since 2013, and Antarctic-wide annual or seasonal ice velocity datasets have been successfully generated [15], [16]. For example, the Global Land Ice Velocity Extraction from Landsat 8 (GoLIVE) dataset [17] has provided near-real-time ice velocity maps since 2013, and the Landsat 8 Ice Speed of Antarctica (LISA) dataset [18] has provided annual or multi-year composite ice velocity maps from 2013 to 2017.…”