Amundsen Sea sector ice shelf thickness, melt rates, and inland response from annual high-resolution DEM mosaics

Abstract:

Significant grounding line retreat, acceleration, and thinning have occurred along the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica in recent decades. These changes are driven primarily by ice-ocean interaction beneath ice shelves, but existing observations of the spatial distribution, timing, and magnitude of ice shelf melt are limited.

Using the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline, we generated digital elevation models (DEMs) with ~2 m posting from all ~450 available WorldView-1/2 along-track stereopairs for the Amundsen Sea sector. A novel iterative closest point algorithm was used to coregister DEMs to filtered Operation IceBridge ATM/LVIS data and ICESat-1 GLAS data, offering optimal sub-meter horizontal/vertical accuracy. The corrected DEMs were used to produce annual mosaics for the entire ~500x700 km region with focused, sub-annual products for ice shelves and grounding zones.

These mosaics provide spatially-continuous measurements of ice shelf topography with unprecedented detail. Using these data, we derive estimates of ice shelf thickness for regions in hydrostatic equilibrium and map networks of sub-shelf melt channels for the Pine Island (PIG), Thwaites, Crosson, and Dotson ice shelves. We also document the break-up of the Thwaites ice shelf and PIG rift evolution leading up to the 2013 calving event.

Eulerian difference maps document 2010-2014 thinning over fast-flowing ice streams and adjacent grounded ice. These data reveal the greatest thinning rates over the Smith Glacier ice plain and slopes beyond the margins of the fast-flowing PIG trunk. Difference maps also highlight the filling of at least two subglacial lakes ~30 km upstream of the PIG grounding line in 2011.

Lagrangian difference maps reveal the spatial distribution of ice shelf thinning, which can primarily be attributed to basal melt. Preliminary results show focused ice shelf thinning within troughs and large basal channels, especially along the western margin of the Dotson ice shelf.

These new data provide critical observations that will improve our understanding ice-ocean interaction and mass loss for the Amundsen Sea sector on local and regional scales.