Changes in glacier dynamics at the northern Antarctic Peninsula since 1985

Abstract

Abstract. The climatic conditions along the northern Antarctic Peninsula have shown significant changes within the last 50 years. Most studies have focused on the glaciers affected by the disintegration of the ice shelves along the east coast. 10However, temporally and spatially detailed observations of the changes in ice dynamics along both the east and west coastlines are missing. Temporal trends of glacier area and ice surface velocity Shelf receded by only 21.07 km² and decelerated by about 69 % on average. Whereat, the former ice shelf tributary glaciers on the east coast showed similar temporal ice dynamics trends. A dramatic acceleration after ice shelf disintegration with a subsequent deceleration is observed. In 2014, the flow speed of the former ice shelf tributaries was 16.8 % higher than at the beginning of the study period. Along the west coast the average flow speeds of the glaciers increased by 41.5 %. However, the glaciers on the western Antarctic Peninsula revealed a strong spatial variability of the changes in ice dynamics. By 20 applying a hierarchical cluster analysis we show that this is associated with geometric parameters of the individual glacier basin. The heterogeneous pattern of ice dynamic trends at the northern Antarctic Peninsula points out that temporally and spatially detailed observations as well as further monitoring are necessary to reveal the full picture of glacier change in regions with such strong topographic and climatic gradients.

Variability of Sediment Accumulation Rates in an Antarctic Fjord

“…Meanwhile, sea‐surface temperatures have increased to ~0.8 °C since 1955 (Meredith & King, ), but fjords in the central and northern WAP have experienced less incursion of relatively warm Circumpolar Deep Water and less glacier retreat than systems farther south (Cook et al, ). While there has been some area reduction for Moser Glacier, the area of Bagshawe has been relatively stable (Seehaus et al, ). This may explain the little evidence of increased sediment production in Andvord Bay on a timescale resolvable by 210 Pb‐based accumulation rates (10–100 year).…”

Modeling the Trooz Glacier’s movement using air temperature data and satellite SAR observations in 2015–2022

“…Climatic conditions of the peninsula experienced significant changes during the last 50 years (Cook &Vaughan, 2010). Substantial changes in ice dynamics along the east and west coasts of the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1992-2014 were found by a complex analysis of the observation time series (Seehaus et al, 2018). The average ice flow velocity in 1992-2014 grew from 0.6-0.8 m/day to 1.3-1.9 m/day.…”

“…To establish correlation between the atmospheric temperature and the glacier movement velocity, it is necessary to process long-time series data (Christie et al, 2016;Hogg et al, 2016;Carr et al, 2017;Seehaus et al, 2018). That allows to follow seasonal changes in glacier dynamics (Cassotto et al, 2015;Boxall et al, 2022) and forecast them.…”