Abstract
[1] It is argued that Larsen Ice Shelf contains marine ice formed by oceanic freezing and other mechanisms. Missing basal returns in airborne radar soundings and observations of a smooth and healed surface coincide downstream of regions where an ocean model predicts freezing. Visible imagery suggests that marine ice currently stabilizes Larsen C Ice Shelf and implicates failure of marine flow bands in the 2002 Larsen B Ice Shelf collapse. Ocean modeling indicates that any regime change towards the incursion of warmer Modified Weddell Deep Water into the Larsen C cavity could curtail basal freezing and its stabilizing influence.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | L11604 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| Early online date | 4 Jun 2009 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2009 |
| Externally published | Yes |