{"dp_type": "Project", "free_text": "Crary Ice Rise"}
[{"awards": "2035035 Patterson, Molly", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-179 -81,-175.6 -81,-172.2 -81,-168.8 -81,-165.4 -81,-162 -81,-158.6 -81,-155.2 -81,-151.8 -81,-148.4 -81,-145 -81,-145 -81.4,-145 -81.8,-145 -82.2,-145 -82.6,-145 -83,-145 -83.4,-145 -83.8,-145 -84.2,-145 -84.6,-145 -85,-148.4 -85,-151.8 -85,-155.2 -85,-158.6 -85,-162 -85,-165.4 -85,-168.8 -85,-172.2 -85,-175.6 -85,-179 -85,-179 -84.6,-179 -84.2,-179 -83.8,-179 -83.4,-179 -83,-179 -82.6,-179 -82.2,-179 -81.8,-179 -81.4,-179 -81))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Wed, 04 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The West Antarctic Ice Sheet presently holds enough ice that it would raise global sea level by five meters if it all melted. Information from satellites demonstrates that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing ice faster than any other region in the Antarctic. However, how much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt and how quickly it will happen when average global temperatures exceed 2 degrees C is currently unknown. At the current rate of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, average global temperatures will be 1.5 degrees C and 2.0 degrees C above preindustrial levels in 10 and 20 years, respectively. Virtually all pathways to restrict the increase in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees C now require direct carbon removal from the atmosphere. Sea level rise is one of the clearest planet-wide signals of this human-induced climate change. Global mean sea level has increased by ~22 cm since 1880 and will continue to rise well beyond the 21st century. Given the far-reaching and international consequences of Antarctica\u0027s future contribution to global sea level rise, the SWAIS 2C Project was developed through international collaboration to better forecast the size and timing of future changes. The Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2\u2070 Celsius (SWAIS 2C) Project scientists will collect and study geological (rocks), glaciological (ice), and geophysical (Earth physical properties) data and provide new information to guide the development of climate and ice sheet numerical models to better understand and predict how the ice sheet on West Antarctica will contribute to future sea level rise. The project aims to interpret the state of past environmental conditions in West Antarctica (warm open marine seas, cold ice-covered ocean, or polar grounded ice sheet) during recent periods in Earths history when average global temperatures reached or exceeded 2 degrees C, levels anticipated within the next two decades. These types of geological studies will help us understand how much ice melted during past warm periods, what processes are involved, and how fast it will change. Glaciological and geophysical information collected by scientists will help us better understand the modern processes that cause the ice sheet to grow or melt. Modeling studies will use this new information regarding past and present ice sheet behavior to make better predictions of how much and how fast the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt in the future. This project will support a United States scientific team with a range of scientific expertise, with a key goal of broadening the involvement of early career scientists in Antarctic research. Informative and impactful education and outreach materials will be developed and shared with educators to bring polar science into the classroom and provide accurate information related to ice sheets stability, sea level rise, and global climate change to students and the public. Satellite observations show that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is losing mass at an accelerated rate, much faster than other Antarctic regions. WAIS is considered highly sensitive to future warming because much of it is grounded 2500 m below sea level and its associated floating ice shelves are exposed to warming ocean waters. Future collapse of marine-based sectors and full melting of the WAIS has the potential to raise global mean sea level by 5 meters. However, Antarctic ice sheet dynamics remain the largest uncertainty in numerical model projections of future sea level rise. Existing datasets lack direct physical evidence of WAISs response to past times when global mean temperatures were 2 degrees C warmer than during pre-industrial time. The Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2\u2070 Celsius (SWAIS 2C) project is a four-year project developed through international collaboration to integrate geological, glaciological, and geophysical data with ice sheet and climate modeling studies to better project future scenarios of WAIS contribution to sea level rise. This approach will aim to integrate studies of past (using geological records) and present (using glaciology and geophysical records) ice sheet behavior to inform future projections (using models) of WAIS response to climate change. This project will recover two ~200 m-long sediment cores from beneath the WAIS using new drilling technology in strategic locations adjacent to the grounding zone at Kamb Ice Stream and at Crary Ice Rise in the inner Ross Embayment along the Siple Coast. Three SWAIS 2C approaches will determine conditions associated with past WAIS collapses and will sharpen our predictive tools to assess its future stability in our warming world: (1) stratigraphic records will provide new paleoenvironmental information regarding past sensitivities to system boundaries, processes, and rates of change; (2) modern observations will provide details of the variables and complexities associated with processes and rates of change; and (3) numerical model application and development will assess future scenarios to equilibrium states in accelerated time, and test system sensitivities and feedbacks. SWAIS 2C Project results will contribute new information from the southern end (most proximal to the ice grounding zone) of a transect that extends north to recent drill holes in the outer Ross Embayment to connect with distal Southern Ocean records. The SWAIS 2C Project is complementary to the US-UK Thwaites Glacier Project on the other side of West Antarctica, allowing for a broader understanding of WAIS history and more accurate predictions of future change. A major goal of this project is to broaden development of early-career scientists in polar research and work closely with teaching professionals to provide new, impactful, and assessable classroom material to educators, and accurate information related to ice sheets stability, sea level rise, and global climate change to the public. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": -145.0, "geometry": "POINT(-162 -83)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Crary Ice Rise; PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS", "locations": "Crary Ice Rise", "north": -81.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Patterson, Molly", "platforms": null, "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -85.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2\u00b0 Celsius (SWAIS 2C)", "uid": "p0010589", "west": -179.0}, {"awards": "2049332 Chu, Winnie; 2048910 Schroeder, Dustin", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -75,-175 -75,-170 -75,-165 -75,-160 -75,-155 -75,-150 -75,-145 -75,-140 -75,-135 -75,-130 -75,-130 -76.1,-130 -77.2,-130 -78.3,-130 -79.4,-130 -80.5,-130 -81.6,-130 -82.7,-130 -83.8,-130 -84.9,-130 -86,-135 -86,-140 -86,-145 -86,-150 -86,-155 -86,-160 -86,-165 -86,-170 -86,-175 -86,180 -86,177.5 -86,175 -86,172.5 -86,170 -86,167.5 -86,165 -86,162.5 -86,160 -86,157.5 -86,155 -86,155 -84.9,155 -83.8,155 -82.7,155 -81.6,155 -80.5,155 -79.4,155 -78.3,155 -77.2,155 -76.1,155 -75,157.5 -75,160 -75,162.5 -75,165 -75,167.5 -75,170 -75,172.5 -75,175 -75,177.5 -75,-180 -75))", "dataset_titles": "Crary Ice Rise region dh/dt estimates; Frozen Legacies - This repository hosts scientific journals and processing codes via Python and MATLab for the historical SPRI-NSF-TUD Campaign in Antarctica.; hverboncoeur/Verboncoeur2024-JoG: code repository", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "200466", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "Frozen Legacies ", "science_program": null, "title": "Frozen Legacies - This repository hosts scientific journals and processing codes via Python and MATLab for the historical SPRI-NSF-TUD Campaign in Antarctica.", "url": "https://github.com/tarzona/frozenlegacies"}, {"dataset_uid": "200512", "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.11406400", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "Zenodo", "science_program": null, "title": "hverboncoeur/Verboncoeur2024-JoG: code repository", "url": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11406400"}, {"dataset_uid": "200511", "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.11396587", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "Zenodo", "science_program": null, "title": "Crary Ice Rise region dh/dt estimates", "url": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11396587"}], "date_created": "Wed, 15 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Ice shelves play a critical role in restricting the seaward flow of grounded glacier ice by providing buttressing at their bases and sides. Processes that affect the long-term stability of ice shelves can therefore influence the future contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to global sea-level rise. The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf on Earth, and it buttresses massive areas of West and East Antarctica. Previous studies of modern ice velocity indicated that the Ross Ice Shelf\u2019s mass loss is roughly balanced by its mass gain. However, more recent work that extends further back in time reveals the ice shelf is likely not in steady state, with possible long-term thinning since the late 1990s. Consequently, to accurately interpret modern-day ice-shelf changes, long-term observations are critical to evaluate how these recent variations fit into the historical context of ice-shelf variability. This project will examine more than four decades of historical and modern airborne radar sounding observations of the Ross Ice Shelf (spanning 1971 to 2017) to investigate ice-shelf changes on decadal timescales. The team will process, calibrate, and analyze radar data collected during 1971-79 field campaigns and compare them against modern observations collected between 2011-17. They will estimate basal melt rates by examining changes in ice-shelf thickness, and will determine other important metrics for melt, including ice-shelf roughness, englacial temperature, and marine-ice formation. The project will support the education of a Ph.D. student at each of the three participating institutions. In addition, the project will support the training of undergraduate and high-school researchers in radioglaciology and Antarctic sciences. The project will test the hypothesis that, over decadal timescales, the basal melt rates beneath the Ross Ice Shelf have been low, particularly under shallow ice drafts, leading to overall thickening and increased buttressing potential. The team aims to provide a direct estimate of basal melt rates based on changes in ice-shelf thickness that occurred between 1971 and 2017. This project will extend similar work completed at Thwaites Glacier and improve the calibration methods on the vertical scaling for fast-time and depth conversion. The work will also leverage the dense modern surveys to improve the geolocation of radar film collected on earlier field campaigns to produce a more precise comparison of local shelf thickness with the modern data. In addition, the team will conduct englacial attenuation analysis to calculate englacial temperature to infer the trends in local basal melting. They will also examine the radiometric and scatterometric character of bed echoes at the ice-ocean boundary to characterize changes in ice-shelf basal roughness, marine-ice formation related to local basal freezing, and structural damage from fracture processes. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": -130.0, "geometry": "POINT(-167.5 -80.5)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS; Antarctic Ice Sheet; GLACIER THICKNESS/ICE SHEET THICKNESS; USAP-DC; AMD; Transantarctic Mountains; Amd/Us; Siple Coast; GLACIER TOPOGRAPHY/ICE SHEET TOPOGRAPHY; FIELD SURVEYS; USA/NSF; Ross Ice Shelf", "locations": "Ross Ice Shelf; Antarctic Ice Sheet; Siple Coast; Transantarctic Mountains", "north": -75.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Chu, Winnie; Schroeder, Dustin; Siegfried, Matthew", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS", "repo": "Frozen Legacies ", "repositories": "Frozen Legacies ; Zenodo", "science_programs": null, "south": -86.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: Investigating Four Decades of Ross Ice Shelf Subsurface Change with Historical and Modern Radar Sounding Data", "uid": "p0010265", "west": 155.0}, {"awards": "1443356 Conway, Howard; 1443552 Paul Winberry, J.", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-175 -82.7,-173.9 -82.7,-172.8 -82.7,-171.7 -82.7,-170.6 -82.7,-169.5 -82.7,-168.4 -82.7,-167.3 -82.7,-166.2 -82.7,-165.1 -82.7,-164 -82.7,-164 -82.77,-164 -82.84,-164 -82.91,-164 -82.98,-164 -83.05,-164 -83.12,-164 -83.19,-164 -83.26,-164 -83.33,-164 -83.4,-165.1 -83.4,-166.2 -83.4,-167.3 -83.4,-168.4 -83.4,-169.5 -83.4,-170.6 -83.4,-171.7 -83.4,-172.8 -83.4,-173.9 -83.4,-175 -83.4,-175 -83.33,-175 -83.26,-175 -83.19,-175 -83.12,-175 -83.05,-175 -82.98,-175 -82.91,-175 -82.84,-175 -82.77,-175 -82.7))", "dataset_titles": "2015_Antarctica_Ground; Geophysical data from Crary Ice Rise, Ross Sea Embayment", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601181", "doi": "10.15784/601181", "keywords": "Antarctica; Bed Elevation; Crary Ice Rise; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; GPR; Ice Penetrating Radar; Ice Sheet Elevation; Ice Shelf; Ice Thickness; Internal Stratigraphy; Radar; Ross Ice Shelf; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice; Surface Elevation", "people": "Winberry, Paul; Paden, John; Koutnik, Michelle; Conway, Howard", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Geophysical data from Crary Ice Rise, Ross Sea Embayment", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601181"}, {"dataset_uid": "200177", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "CReSIS/ku.edu", "science_program": null, "title": "2015_Antarctica_Ground", "url": "https://data.cresis.ku.edu/data/accum/2015_Antarctica_Ground/"}], "date_created": "Mon, 06 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Recent observations and model results suggest that collapse of the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica may already be underway. However, the timeline of collapse and the effects of ongoing climatic and oceanographic changes are key unanswered questions. Complete disintegration of the ice sheet would raise global sea level by more than 3 m, which would have significant societal impacts. Improved understanding of the controls on ice-sheet evolution is needed to make better predictions of ice-sheet behavior. Results from numerical models show that buttressing from surrounding ice shelves and/or from small-scale grounded ice rises should act to slow the retreat and discharge of ice from the interior ice sheet. However, there are very few field observations with which to develop and validate models. Field observations conducted in the early 1980s on Crary Ice Rise in the Ross Sea Embayment are a notable exception. This project will revisit Crary Ice Rise with new tools to make a suite of measurements designed to address questions about how the ice rise affects ice discharge from the Ross Sea sector of West Antarctica. The team will include a graduate and undergraduate student, and will participate in a range of outreach activities. New tools including radar, seismic, and GPS instruments will be used to conduct targeted geophysical measurements both on Crary Ice Rise and across its grounding line. The project will use these new measurements, together with available ancillary data to inform a numerical model of grounding line dynamics. The model and measurements will be used to address the (1) How has the ice rise evolved over timescales ranging from: the past few decades; the past millennia after freeze-on; and through the deglaciation? (2) What history of ice dynamics is preserved in the radar-detected internal stratigraphy? (3) What dynamical effect does the presence/absence of the ice rise have on discharge of the Ross Ice Streams today? (4) How is it contributing to the slow-down of the proximal Whillans and Mercer ice streams? (5) What dynamical response will the ice rise have under future environmental change?", "east": -164.0, "geometry": "POINT(-169.5 -83.05)", "instruments": "EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR ECHO SOUNDERS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Amd/Us; FIELD SURVEYS; Antarctica; USA/NSF; AMD; USAP-DC; Radar; GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": -82.7, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Conway, Howard; Koutnik, Michelle; Winberry, Paul", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "CReSIS/ku.edu; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -83.4, "title": "Collaborative Research: Grounding Line Dynamics: Crary Ice Rise Revisited", "uid": "p0010026", "west": -175.0}]
X
X
Help on the Results MapX
This window can be dragged by its header, and can be resized from the bottom right corner.
Clicking the Layers button - the blue square in the top left of the Results Map - will display a list of map layers you can add or remove
from the currently displayed map view.
The Results Map and the Results Table
- The Results Map displays the centroids of the geographic bounds of all the results returned by the search.
- Results that are displayed in the current map view will be highlighted in blue and brought to the top of the Results Table.
- As the map is panned or zoomed, the highlighted rows in the table will update.
- If you click on a centroid on the map, it will turn yellow and display a popup with details for that project/dataset - including a link to the landing page. The bounds for the project(s)/dataset(s) selected will be displayed in red. The selected result(s) will be highlighted in red and brought to the top of the table.
- The default table sorting order is: Selected, Visible, Date (descending), but this can be changed by clicking on column headers in the table.
- Selecting Show on Map for an individual row will both display the geographic bounds for that result on a mini map, and also display the bounds and highlight the centroid on the Results Map.
- Clicking the 'Show boundaries' checkbox at the top of the Results Map will display all the bounds for the filtered results.
Defining a search area on the Results Map
- If you click on the Rectangle or Polygon icons in the top right of the Results Map, you can define a search area which will be added to any other search criteria already selected.
- After you have drawn a polygon, you can edit it using the Edit Geometry dropdown in the search form at the top.
- Clicking Clear in the map will clear any drawn polygon.
- Clicking Search in the map, or Search on the form will have the same effect.
- The returned results will be any projects/datasets with bounds that intersect the polygon.
- Use the Exclude project/datasets checkbox to exclude any projects/datasets that cover the whole Antarctic region.
Viewing map layers on the Results Map
Older retrieved projects from AMD. Warning: many have incomplete information.
To sort the table of search results, click the header of the column you wish to search by. To sort by multiple columns, hold down the shift key whilst selecting the sort columns in order.
| Project Title/Abstract/Map | NSF Award(s) | Date Created | PIs / Scientists | Dataset Links and Repositories | Abstract | Bounds Geometry | Geometry | Selected | Visible | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Collaborative Research: Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2° Celsius (SWAIS 2C)
|
2035035 |
2026-11-04 | Patterson, Molly | No dataset link provided | This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The West Antarctic Ice Sheet presently holds enough ice that it would raise global sea level by five meters if it all melted. Information from satellites demonstrates that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing ice faster than any other region in the Antarctic. However, how much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt and how quickly it will happen when average global temperatures exceed 2 degrees C is currently unknown. At the current rate of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, average global temperatures will be 1.5 degrees C and 2.0 degrees C above preindustrial levels in 10 and 20 years, respectively. Virtually all pathways to restrict the increase in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees C now require direct carbon removal from the atmosphere. Sea level rise is one of the clearest planet-wide signals of this human-induced climate change. Global mean sea level has increased by ~22 cm since 1880 and will continue to rise well beyond the 21st century. Given the far-reaching and international consequences of Antarctica's future contribution to global sea level rise, the SWAIS 2C Project was developed through international collaboration to better forecast the size and timing of future changes. The Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2⁰ Celsius (SWAIS 2C) Project scientists will collect and study geological (rocks), glaciological (ice), and geophysical (Earth physical properties) data and provide new information to guide the development of climate and ice sheet numerical models to better understand and predict how the ice sheet on West Antarctica will contribute to future sea level rise. The project aims to interpret the state of past environmental conditions in West Antarctica (warm open marine seas, cold ice-covered ocean, or polar grounded ice sheet) during recent periods in Earths history when average global temperatures reached or exceeded 2 degrees C, levels anticipated within the next two decades. These types of geological studies will help us understand how much ice melted during past warm periods, what processes are involved, and how fast it will change. Glaciological and geophysical information collected by scientists will help us better understand the modern processes that cause the ice sheet to grow or melt. Modeling studies will use this new information regarding past and present ice sheet behavior to make better predictions of how much and how fast the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt in the future. This project will support a United States scientific team with a range of scientific expertise, with a key goal of broadening the involvement of early career scientists in Antarctic research. Informative and impactful education and outreach materials will be developed and shared with educators to bring polar science into the classroom and provide accurate information related to ice sheets stability, sea level rise, and global climate change to students and the public. Satellite observations show that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is losing mass at an accelerated rate, much faster than other Antarctic regions. WAIS is considered highly sensitive to future warming because much of it is grounded 2500 m below sea level and its associated floating ice shelves are exposed to warming ocean waters. Future collapse of marine-based sectors and full melting of the WAIS has the potential to raise global mean sea level by 5 meters. However, Antarctic ice sheet dynamics remain the largest uncertainty in numerical model projections of future sea level rise. Existing datasets lack direct physical evidence of WAISs response to past times when global mean temperatures were 2 degrees C warmer than during pre-industrial time. The Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2⁰ Celsius (SWAIS 2C) project is a four-year project developed through international collaboration to integrate geological, glaciological, and geophysical data with ice sheet and climate modeling studies to better project future scenarios of WAIS contribution to sea level rise. This approach will aim to integrate studies of past (using geological records) and present (using glaciology and geophysical records) ice sheet behavior to inform future projections (using models) of WAIS response to climate change. This project will recover two ~200 m-long sediment cores from beneath the WAIS using new drilling technology in strategic locations adjacent to the grounding zone at Kamb Ice Stream and at Crary Ice Rise in the inner Ross Embayment along the Siple Coast. Three SWAIS 2C approaches will determine conditions associated with past WAIS collapses and will sharpen our predictive tools to assess its future stability in our warming world: (1) stratigraphic records will provide new paleoenvironmental information regarding past sensitivities to system boundaries, processes, and rates of change; (2) modern observations will provide details of the variables and complexities associated with processes and rates of change; and (3) numerical model application and development will assess future scenarios to equilibrium states in accelerated time, and test system sensitivities and feedbacks. SWAIS 2C Project results will contribute new information from the southern end (most proximal to the ice grounding zone) of a transect that extends north to recent drill holes in the outer Ross Embayment to connect with distal Southern Ocean records. The SWAIS 2C Project is complementary to the US-UK Thwaites Glacier Project on the other side of West Antarctica, allowing for a broader understanding of WAIS history and more accurate predictions of future change. A major goal of this project is to broaden development of early-career scientists in polar research and work closely with teaching professionals to provide new, impactful, and assessable classroom material to educators, and accurate information related to ice sheets stability, sea level rise, and global climate change to the public. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | POLYGON((-179 -81,-175.6 -81,-172.2 -81,-168.8 -81,-165.4 -81,-162 -81,-158.6 -81,-155.2 -81,-151.8 -81,-148.4 -81,-145 -81,-145 -81.4,-145 -81.8,-145 -82.2,-145 -82.6,-145 -83,-145 -83.4,-145 -83.8,-145 -84.2,-145 -84.6,-145 -85,-148.4 -85,-151.8 -85,-155.2 -85,-158.6 -85,-162 -85,-165.4 -85,-168.8 -85,-172.2 -85,-175.6 -85,-179 -85,-179 -84.6,-179 -84.2,-179 -83.8,-179 -83.4,-179 -83,-179 -82.6,-179 -82.2,-179 -81.8,-179 -81.4,-179 -81)) | POINT(-162 -83) | false | false | |||||
|
Collaborative Research: Investigating Four Decades of Ross Ice Shelf Subsurface Change with Historical and Modern Radar Sounding Data
|
2049332 2048910 |
2021-09-15 | Chu, Winnie; Schroeder, Dustin; Siegfried, Matthew | This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Ice shelves play a critical role in restricting the seaward flow of grounded glacier ice by providing buttressing at their bases and sides. Processes that affect the long-term stability of ice shelves can therefore influence the future contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to global sea-level rise. The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf on Earth, and it buttresses massive areas of West and East Antarctica. Previous studies of modern ice velocity indicated that the Ross Ice Shelf’s mass loss is roughly balanced by its mass gain. However, more recent work that extends further back in time reveals the ice shelf is likely not in steady state, with possible long-term thinning since the late 1990s. Consequently, to accurately interpret modern-day ice-shelf changes, long-term observations are critical to evaluate how these recent variations fit into the historical context of ice-shelf variability. This project will examine more than four decades of historical and modern airborne radar sounding observations of the Ross Ice Shelf (spanning 1971 to 2017) to investigate ice-shelf changes on decadal timescales. The team will process, calibrate, and analyze radar data collected during 1971-79 field campaigns and compare them against modern observations collected between 2011-17. They will estimate basal melt rates by examining changes in ice-shelf thickness, and will determine other important metrics for melt, including ice-shelf roughness, englacial temperature, and marine-ice formation. The project will support the education of a Ph.D. student at each of the three participating institutions. In addition, the project will support the training of undergraduate and high-school researchers in radioglaciology and Antarctic sciences. The project will test the hypothesis that, over decadal timescales, the basal melt rates beneath the Ross Ice Shelf have been low, particularly under shallow ice drafts, leading to overall thickening and increased buttressing potential. The team aims to provide a direct estimate of basal melt rates based on changes in ice-shelf thickness that occurred between 1971 and 2017. This project will extend similar work completed at Thwaites Glacier and improve the calibration methods on the vertical scaling for fast-time and depth conversion. The work will also leverage the dense modern surveys to improve the geolocation of radar film collected on earlier field campaigns to produce a more precise comparison of local shelf thickness with the modern data. In addition, the team will conduct englacial attenuation analysis to calculate englacial temperature to infer the trends in local basal melting. They will also examine the radiometric and scatterometric character of bed echoes at the ice-ocean boundary to characterize changes in ice-shelf basal roughness, marine-ice formation related to local basal freezing, and structural damage from fracture processes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | POLYGON((-180 -75,-175 -75,-170 -75,-165 -75,-160 -75,-155 -75,-150 -75,-145 -75,-140 -75,-135 -75,-130 -75,-130 -76.1,-130 -77.2,-130 -78.3,-130 -79.4,-130 -80.5,-130 -81.6,-130 -82.7,-130 -83.8,-130 -84.9,-130 -86,-135 -86,-140 -86,-145 -86,-150 -86,-155 -86,-160 -86,-165 -86,-170 -86,-175 -86,180 -86,177.5 -86,175 -86,172.5 -86,170 -86,167.5 -86,165 -86,162.5 -86,160 -86,157.5 -86,155 -86,155 -84.9,155 -83.8,155 -82.7,155 -81.6,155 -80.5,155 -79.4,155 -78.3,155 -77.2,155 -76.1,155 -75,157.5 -75,160 -75,162.5 -75,165 -75,167.5 -75,170 -75,172.5 -75,175 -75,177.5 -75,-180 -75)) | POINT(-167.5 -80.5) | false | false | ||||||
|
Collaborative Research: Grounding Line Dynamics: Crary Ice Rise Revisited
|
1443356 1443552 |
2019-05-06 | Conway, Howard; Koutnik, Michelle; Winberry, Paul |
|
Recent observations and model results suggest that collapse of the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica may already be underway. However, the timeline of collapse and the effects of ongoing climatic and oceanographic changes are key unanswered questions. Complete disintegration of the ice sheet would raise global sea level by more than 3 m, which would have significant societal impacts. Improved understanding of the controls on ice-sheet evolution is needed to make better predictions of ice-sheet behavior. Results from numerical models show that buttressing from surrounding ice shelves and/or from small-scale grounded ice rises should act to slow the retreat and discharge of ice from the interior ice sheet. However, there are very few field observations with which to develop and validate models. Field observations conducted in the early 1980s on Crary Ice Rise in the Ross Sea Embayment are a notable exception. This project will revisit Crary Ice Rise with new tools to make a suite of measurements designed to address questions about how the ice rise affects ice discharge from the Ross Sea sector of West Antarctica. The team will include a graduate and undergraduate student, and will participate in a range of outreach activities. New tools including radar, seismic, and GPS instruments will be used to conduct targeted geophysical measurements both on Crary Ice Rise and across its grounding line. The project will use these new measurements, together with available ancillary data to inform a numerical model of grounding line dynamics. The model and measurements will be used to address the (1) How has the ice rise evolved over timescales ranging from: the past few decades; the past millennia after freeze-on; and through the deglaciation? (2) What history of ice dynamics is preserved in the radar-detected internal stratigraphy? (3) What dynamical effect does the presence/absence of the ice rise have on discharge of the Ross Ice Streams today? (4) How is it contributing to the slow-down of the proximal Whillans and Mercer ice streams? (5) What dynamical response will the ice rise have under future environmental change? | POLYGON((-175 -82.7,-173.9 -82.7,-172.8 -82.7,-171.7 -82.7,-170.6 -82.7,-169.5 -82.7,-168.4 -82.7,-167.3 -82.7,-166.2 -82.7,-165.1 -82.7,-164 -82.7,-164 -82.77,-164 -82.84,-164 -82.91,-164 -82.98,-164 -83.05,-164 -83.12,-164 -83.19,-164 -83.26,-164 -83.33,-164 -83.4,-165.1 -83.4,-166.2 -83.4,-167.3 -83.4,-168.4 -83.4,-169.5 -83.4,-170.6 -83.4,-171.7 -83.4,-172.8 -83.4,-173.9 -83.4,-175 -83.4,-175 -83.33,-175 -83.26,-175 -83.19,-175 -83.12,-175 -83.05,-175 -82.98,-175 -82.91,-175 -82.84,-175 -82.77,-175 -82.7)) | POINT(-169.5 -83.05) | false | false |

