Coupled ice-flow/ocean circulation modeling in the Amundsen Sea Embayment using ISSM and MITgcm.

Abstract:

the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is thought to be prone to marine instability in which prolonged grounding line retreat could occur due to inland downwards sloping bedrocks. However, this instability is difficult to model in part due to the absence of good parameterizations for melt-rates under ice-shelves, in particular near or at the grounding-line, where a complex interplay between butressing, melt-rate, water-pressure and internal stresses in the ice develops. In order to simulate such melt rates accurately, ice-sheet models need to be fully coupled to ocean models, in order to capture the feedback mechanisms between heat-flux at the ice/ocean interface and cavity shape driven by grounding-line retreat.
Here, we show an example of such a coupling between the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM) and the MIT General Circulation Model (MITgcm). The goal is to run sensitivity studies of the evolution of Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica. We quantify the impact of feedbacks between both systems by running short transients (20-100 years) of the coupled ice-sheet flow/ocean circulation model. We vary inputs such as far-field temperature of the Circumpolar Deep-Water, surface temperature of the Amundsen Sea Embayment, and far-field surface ice-flow velocity. Preliminary insights into the variability of the system are presented, as well as quantified impacts of variations in model inputs.

This work was performed at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory under
a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cryosphere Science Program.