Antarctic ice shelf - shelf - slope exchange study

Ice-ocean interactions and circulation below the ice shelves fringing the Antarctic continent are of great climatic interest since they determine the basal melt rates which influencing a) the ice shelf mass balance and thus its capacity to buttress the ic e sheet feeding them and b) the production of cold, dense Ice Shelf Water (ISW) which is a source of Antarctic Bottom Water. The Filchner-Ronne ice shelf (FRIS) in the southern Weddell Sea, Antarctica is the second largest ice shelf in the world and a key site for bottom water formation. While basal melt-rates currently are low they are predicted to increase drastically in a future, warmer world, with the underlying processes being subject to large uncertainty. This project will combine new long-term ob servations from two key sites below and in the vicinity of the FRIS with a high resolution regional model to study i) the cross-shelf exchange of heat and the likelyhood of the future high melt-rate scenarios produced by a relatively coarse climate model which do not ressolve the relevant processes and ii) the variability and circulation below FRIS and its relation to variability on the shelf and in the dense outflow of ISW across the Filchner sill. Within the project we will arrange an international wor k shop with the aim of consolidate the European consortium for studies of ocean-ice shelf processes which was recently initiated and to prepare a common proposal to the EU. The proposed work connects national expertiese from different discipllines in Anta rctic climate science and is based on a close collaboration with several international partners being leading within the field.