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Abstract:
In East Antarctica, melt maxima observed near ice-shelf grounding lines have been attributed to katabatic winds. Despite being a characteristically cool, dense airflow, this wind is responsible for warm-air anomalies along the Antarctic coastline due to disruption of the surface temperature inversion that typically pervades here. However, this offers an incomplete explanation for the large local amplifications in melt observed (such as a doubling for Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf), implying that a true mechanistic understanding of how downslope flows mediate air temperatures and melt at the foot of the Antarctic plateau is lacking. Here, we use ground observations from AWS located on and upstream of Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf in tandem with atmospheric reanalysis data to identify the meteorological regimes responsible for this melt, and to explain the physical mechanisms by which these regimes deliver heat to the ice shelf.
