Melting characteristics of horizontal ice surfaces in cold saline water

Gebhart, B.; Sammakia, Bahgat; Audunson, T.

doi:10.1029/jc088ic05p02935

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…Josberger and Martin (1981) experimented with a model ice wall melted by seawater, finding that a 1.6-power relation was valid for temperatures between Ϫ0.1°and ϩ9°C. Gebhart et al (1983) present results indicating that similar relations are applicable to several other experimental studies.…”

Section: Previous Studiessupporting

confidence: 79%

The Response of Ice Shelf Basal Melting to Variations in Ocean Temperature

2008

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A three-dimensional ocean general circulation model is used to study the response of idealized ice shelves to a series of ocean-warming scenarios. The model predicts that the total ice shelf basal melt increases quadratically as the ocean offshore of the ice front warms. This occurs because the melt rate is proportional to the product of ocean flow speed and temperature in the mixed layer directly beneath the ice shelf, both of which are found to increase linearly with ocean warming. The behavior of this complex primitive equation model can be described surprisingly well with recourse to an idealized reduced system of equations, and it is shown that this system supports a melt rate response to warming that is generally quadratic in nature. This study confirms and unifies several previous examinations of the relation between melt rate and ocean temperature but disagrees with other results, particularly the claim that a single melt rate sensitivity to warming is universally valid. The hypothesized warming does not necessarily require a heat input to the ocean, as warmer waters (or larger volumes of "warm" water) may reach ice shelves purely through a shift in ocean circulation. Since ice shelves link the Antarctic Ice Sheet to the climate of the Southern Ocean, this finding of an above-linear rise in ice shelf mass loss as the ocean steadily warms is of significant importance to understanding ice sheet evolution and sea level rise.

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Section: Previous Studiessupporting

confidence: 79%

The Response of Ice Shelf Basal Melting to Variations in Ocean Temperature

2008

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“…The basic problem is that of calculating heat flow through a turbulent boundary layer in the presence of buoyancy produced by melting. Gebhart et al [1983] considered the case where water movement is controlled by the natural convection induced by melting, but the general case of melting within an externally controlled field of water movement is more suited to the present purpose. The problem has been addressed by McPhee [1983], who gives a model for the melting of a wind-driven ice floe floating in "warm" water with Monin-Obukov scaling to account for the buoyancy flux.…”

Section: Melting At the Ice-water Interfacementioning

confidence: 99%

Ice pumps and their rates

Lewis¹,

Perkin²

1986

J. Geophys. Res.

244

193

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An ice pump is a heat engine, driven by the change of freezing point with pressure, which will melt ice at depth in the ocean and deposit it at a shallower location: it is self‐starting. Calculations of the maximum magnitude of this effect are made which show good agreement with field data available for sea and lake ice. The discussion is applied to the general case of a moving pack ice sheet with a well‐mixed surface layer and to floating ice shelves. The rate of melt from an 11‐m‐deep pressure ridge keel due to ice pumping is estimated as 26 cm/year, and that from the front of the Ross Ice Shelf at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica is estimated as 5 m/year for the level of water movement noted in the authors' field observations. Far from the ice front, pumping between shelf areas of different thickness will still occur, with tidal motion providing the necessary water exchange, but its magnitude is now limited by the ability to remove the potentially stable layer of melt water out of the system. It is important to realize that the pumping does not depend on the availability of sensible heat in the water column and its effects are additional to any melting caused by the advection of warmer water to the ice‐water interface.

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“…Modeling and laboratory studies [Kozo, 1983;Gebhart et al, 1983;Muench et al, 1995] have shown that lateral circulation can develop in regions where ice formation (or melt) is not uniform. As the thicker ice melts, it provides a source of fresh, less dense water.…”

Section: Error Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Wintertime heat flux to the underside of East Antarctic pack ice

Lytle¹,

Massom²,

Bindoff³

et al. 2000

J. Geophys. Res.

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Abstract. In the sea ice zone, there is a delicate balance between the heat loss from the surface of the snow-covered sea ice and the heat supplied to the underside of the ice by the deep ocean. The difference between these two heat fluxes determines the amount of ice growth or melt. In global atmospheric models the ocean heat flux is often prescribed and has been shown to be an important parameter in determining how thick sea ice will grow thermodynamically. Although this ocean heat flux is a critical component in climate models, there are relatively few direct measurements in the Antarctic sea ice region. In this study we use measurements of the temperature gradient through the sea ice and of ice growth during a field experiment to estimate the ocean heat flux in the East Antarctic region around 140øE, 65øS during August 1995. We find an average ocean heat flux of

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Melting characteristics of horizontal ice surfaces in cold saline water

Cited by 9 publications

References 13 publications

The Response of Ice Shelf Basal Melting to Variations in Ocean Temperature

The Response of Ice Shelf Basal Melting to Variations in Ocean Temperature

Ice pumps and their rates

Wintertime heat flux to the underside of East Antarctic pack ice

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