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| Titel |
Antarctic shelf warming under climate change: Insights from eddying climate models |
| VerfasserIn |
Paul Goddard, Carolina O. Dufour, Jianjun Yin, Stephen M. Griffies, Michael Winton |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2017
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 19 (2017) |
| Datensatznummer |
250146558
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2017-10586.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Ocean warming around the Antarctic Ice Sheet has important implications for ice sheet mass
loss and global sea level rise. Understanding the ocean processes responsible for Antarctic
shelf warming is thus critical to improve climate projections. Several recent studies have
pointed out the role of ocean mesoscale eddies in bringing heat onto the shelf with
a focus on specific regions, such as the Western Antarctic Peninsula. However,
we still lack a more general picture of ocean warming over the whole Antarctic
shelf region and a detailed analysis of the response of heat transport to climate
change.
In this study, we present an analysis of the response of ocean heat transport at the
Antarctic shelf break to climate change, and we address the role of mesoscale eddies in this
transport. To do so, we use two eddying climate models of different resolutions in the ocean
(0.25∘ and 0.10∘) each run under a preindustrial forcing scenario and a climate change
forcing scenario. Analyses of the heat transport across the Antarctic Slope Front (ASF) are
carried out with a decomposition of the transport into its time-mean and eddy components.
Heat budgets over the shelf region are also performed to investigate the role of
other processes (e.g. surface fluxes) in shelf warming. Finally, the Antarctic shelf
region is divided into several sub-regions to examine geographical variations in
the warming. We find that the shelf regions warm under climate change due to
a combination of warmer atmospheric temperatures, a large reduction of sea ice
coverage, increased heat transport across the ASF or increased freshening at the
surface. We discuss the impact of each of these factors on shelf warming in the
different regions, as well as the contribution of mesoscale eddies to this warming. |
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