Damage development on Antarctic ice shelves sensitive to climate warming
Maaike Izeboud (TU Delft - Mathematical Geodesy and Positioning, Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Bert Wouters (TU Delft - Physical and Space Geodesy)
Sophie de Roda Husman (TU Delft - Physical and Space Geodesy)
Stef Lhermitte (TU Delft - Mathematical Geodesy and Positioning, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Damage features, such as rifts and crevasses, are the first signs of a weakened ice shelf and the precursor for retreat. Yet, damage changes are not widely quantified on Antarctic ice shelves, leaving future ice shelf weakening poorly understood. Here we use satellite imagery to detect both long-term (24-year) and short-term (annual, 2015–2021) Antarctic-wide damage changes, revealing a multiyear damage development cycle strongly correlated to ice shelf area changes, and a net decline in damaged area from 1997 to 2021. We establish a data-driven link between damage and ice flow characteristics, which shows that ice flow acceleration, strain rate increases and thinning lead to more damage development, in particular under high-emission climate scenarios. This sensitivity to warming suggests that without quantification of damage impacts by detailed physical models the (timing of) ice shelf retreat and Antarctic mass loss may currently be underestimated.