Array · collection · 2023
Collaborative Research: Water on the Antarctic Ice Sheet: Quantifying Surface Melt and Mapping Supraglacial Lakes
Listed in NASA Earthdata CMR
Melting of snow and ice at the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet can lead to the formation of meltwater lakes, an important precursor to ice-shelf collapse and accelerated ice-sheet mass loss.
Description
Understanding the present state of Antarctic surface melt provides a baseline to gauge how quickly melt impacts could evolve in the future and to reduce uncertainties in estimates of future sea-level rise. This project used a suite of complimentary measurements from Earth-observing satellites, ground observations, and numerical climate models to enhance understanding of surface melt and lakes, as well as the processes linking these systems.
The project supported the scientific training of a postdoctoral associate, a graduate student, and several undergraduate researchers. In addition, the project aimed to promote public scientific literacy and the broadening of quantitative skills for high-school students through the development and implementation of an educational unit in a partnership with an education and outreach expert and two high school teachers. We identified that surface lake drainages on East Antarctica’s Amery Ice Shelf closely correspond to peaks in the daily amplitude of ocean tides.
Read the rest (3 more)
This research indicates that tidal-induced flexure inherent to the ice shelf grounding zone when combined with sufficient surface meltwater volumes can trigger ice shelf surface lake drainages (Trusel et al., 2022). In addition, we developed new estimates of surface melting across the Antarctic ice sheet using satellite and reanalysis data. First, we developed and implemented a pan-Antarctic ice sheet surface melt detection method applied to C-band Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) radar backscatter data.
These binary melt presence/absence data were then combined with radar backscatter and ERA5 reanalysis outputs to estimate daily rates of surface meltwater production (in mm of water equivalence) across the Antarctic Peninsula region. These data therefore provide a new, observationally based dataset to investigate the intensity and drivers of surface melting in Antarctica’s highest-melt region, and with which to evaluate climate model simulations.
This method and an assessment of the resulting data are the subject of a forthcoming manuscript.
Links
Get the data
- zenodo.org /record/7995543 ↗
ASCAT-ERA5 Antarctic Peninsula Daily Surface Meltwater Production (2007-2022)
download · from NASA CMR
- zenodo.org /record/6374343 ↗
Trusel et al 2022, Geophysical Research Letters: Publication data and code
download · from NASA CMR
- zenodo.org /record/7995998 ↗
Antarctic ice sheet daily surface melt detection from ASCAT (2007-2022)
download · from NASA CMR
Documentation and papers
- NSF Award Abstract nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=2021699 ↗
documentation · from NASA CMR
Catalogue records · 2
- CMR record cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov/search/concepts/C2705781553-AMD_USAPDC.html ↗
catalogue entry · from NASA CMR
- CMR UMM-JSON cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov/search/concepts/C2705781553-AMD_USAPDC.umm_json ↗
metadata API · from NASA CMR
Topics
- Stated by source
- Ice Sheets · Not provided
- Inferred from text
- Climate model simulation 65% · Physical geography and environmental geoscience 75%
Provenance · 1 source records, 13 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| NASA Earthdata CMR | C2705781553-AMD_USAPDC | 14 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| access_level | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].anzsrc:group:3709 | enrichment · NASA CMR | taxonomy-embedding@1.1.0 | title+keywords+description (75%) |
| concepts[measured_variable].gcmd:earth-science/cryosphere/glaciers-ice-sheets/ice-sheets | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].local:method:climate-model | enrichment · NASA CMR | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (65%) |
| concepts[platform].gcmd_platform:not-provided | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | |
| created_date | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | /umm/Abstract |
| publication_date | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | |
| spatial | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | /umm/SpatialExtent |
| temporal | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | /umm/TemporalExtents |
| title | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | /umm/EntryTitle |
| updated_date | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 | |
| version_label | source · NASA CMR | connector:nasa_cmr@1.0.0 |