HR: 0800h
AN: C51B-0383    [Abstracts]
TI: Numerical Modeling of West Antarctic Ice Sheet grounding-line stability under the influence of changing continental shelf physiography
AU: * Robinson, R
EM: rrhonika@gmail.com
AF: Louisiana State University Department of Geology and Geophysics, E-235 Howe-Russell Complex, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, United States
AU: Fastook, J
EM: fastook@maine.edu
AF: University of Maine, 223 Neville Hall, Orono, ME 04469, United States
AU: Bart, P
EM: pbart@lsu.edu
AF: Louisiana State University Department of Geology and Geophysics, E-235 Howe-Russell Complex, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, United States
AB: Bart and Iwai (in prep.) utilize morphologic and biologic evidence to hypothesize that the Antarctic Peninsula's outer continental shelf overdeepened during a transitory period of increased glacial erosion in the early Pliocene. They attribute the enhanced erosion of the continental shelf to a period of regional warming on the peninsula's pacific margin that produced an associated increased flux of snow and ice. On the over-deepened outer continental shelf, the deeper-water sills presumably permitted a larger influx of relatively warm circumpolar deep water. If correct and if early Pliocene overdeepening of the continental shelf was a continent-wide phenomenon, then this relatively recent modification of the Antarctic continental shelf may have greatly altered the way in which the marine terminus of the Antarctic Ice Sheet interacts with global thermohaline circulation. Our ongoing numerical modeling experiments of the Eastern Basin Ross Sea continental shelf are designed to evaluate the influence of changing shelf morphology (primarily water depth) and water-mass properties (primarily, water temperature) on West Antarctic Ice Sheet grounding-line stability.
DE: 0726 Ice sheets
DE: 0798 Modeling
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting