Observed platelet ice distributions in Antarctic sea ice: An

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TitleObserved platelet ice distributions in Antarctic sea ice: An index for ocean-ice shelf heat fluxAbstractAntarctic sea ice that has been affected by supercooled Ice Shelf Water (ISW) has a unique crystallographic structure and is called platelet ice. In this paper we synthesize platelet ice observations to construct a continent-wide map of the winter presence of ISW at the ocean surface. The observations demonstrate that, in some regions of coastal Antarctica, supercooled ISW drives a negative oceanic heat flux of -30Wm-2 that persists for several months during winter, significantly affecting sea ice thickness. In other regions, particularly where the thinning of ice shelves is believed to be greatest, platelet ice is not observed. Our new data set includes the longest ice-ocean record for Antarctica, which dates back to 1902 near the McMurdo Ice Shelf. These historical data indicate that, over the past 100years, any change in the volume of very cold surface outflow from this ice shelf is less than the uncertainties in the measurements. Key Points In SW Ross Sea no change in Ice Shelf Water volume under sea ice is detectable over past 100 years Using platelet ice records, an Antarctic-wide map of supercooled Ice Shelf Water is constructed Ice Shelf Water heat flux persists for months with a magnitude similar to that in polynya formation. Copyright 2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.AcknowledgementsPreviously unpublished data were collected in McMurdo Sound with the support of Antarctica New Zealand and the winter-over crews of 2003 and 2009. A contribution to the collection of these Antarctic field data was made by Brett Grant, Stefan Jendersie, Justin Beckers, Kelvin Barnsdale, Jono Leitch, and Brian Staite. Contributions to the formulation of ideas in this work were made by Pat Wongpan, Stefan Jendersie, David Dempsey, Craig Purdie, Cecilia Bitz, Lars Smedsrud, Stephen Ackley,and Mario Hoppmann. Project support was supplied by the New Zealand Ministry of Science and Innovation, Foundation for Research Science andTechnology, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and the Universities of Otago and Canterbury. The data compiled for this study may be accessed in the supporting information.The Editor thanks Stephen Ackley and an anonymous reviewer for their assistance in evaluating this paper.

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1st AuthorLanghorne, P.AuthorLanghorne, P.Hughes, K.Gough, A.Smith, I.Williams, M.Robinson, N.Stevens, C.Rack, W.Price, D.Leonard, G.Mahoney, A.Haas, C.Haskell, T.Year2015JournalGeophysical Research LettersVolume42Number13Pages5442-5451DOI10.1002/2015GL064508URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....aba4f438aae7eae9fdf7b8b31KeywordsDigital storageHeat fluxPlateletsSea iceSupercoolingUncertainty analysis, Antarctic sea iceCrystallographic structureHistorical dataIce shelf watersMcmurdo ice shelvesOcean surfacesOceanic heat fluxSea-ice thickness, Ice, crystallographyheat fluxice shelfice-ocean interactionpolynyasea icesupercooling, AntarcticaEast AntarcticaMcMurdo Ice ShelfRoss SeaSouthern Ocean, rank5

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TypeArticleCitationLanghorne, P., Hughes, K., Gough, A., Smith, I., Williams, M., Robinson, N., Stevens, C., Rack, W., Price, D., Leonard, G., Mahoney, A., Haas, C. and Haskell, T. (2015). Observed platelet ice distributions in Antarctic sea ice: An index for ocean-ice shelf heat flux. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(13): 5442-5451 IdentifierLanghorne2015Relevancerank5

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