Large interannual variability in supraglacial lakes around East Antarctica
Jennifer F. Arthur (),
Chris R. Stokes,
Stewart S. R. Jamieson,
J. Rachel Carr,
Amber A. Leeson and
Vincent Verjans
Additional contact information
Jennifer F. Arthur: Durham University
Chris R. Stokes: Durham University
Stewart S. R. Jamieson: Durham University
J. Rachel Carr: Newcastle University
Amber A. Leeson: Lancaster University, Bailrigg
Vincent Verjans: Georgia Institute of Technology
Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-12
Abstract:
Abstract Antarctic supraglacial lakes (SGLs) have been linked to ice shelf collapse and the subsequent acceleration of inland ice flow, but observations of SGLs remain relatively scarce and their interannual variability is largely unknown. This makes it difficult to assess whether some ice shelves are close to thresholds of stability under climate warming. Here, we present the first observations of SGLs across the entire East Antarctic Ice Sheet over multiple melt seasons (2014–2020). Interannual variability in SGL volume is >200% on some ice shelves, but patterns are highly asynchronous. More extensive, deeper SGLs correlate with higher summer (December-January-February) air temperatures, but comparisons with modelled melt and runoff are complex. However, we find that modelled January melt and the ratio of November firn air content to summer melt are important predictors of SGL volume on some potentially vulnerable ice shelves, suggesting large increases in SGLs should be expected under future atmospheric warming.
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29385-3 Abstract (text/html)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29385-3
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29385-3
Access Statistics for this article
Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie
More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().