Floating ice shelves buttress inland ice and curtail grounded-ice discharge. Climate warming causes melting and ultimately breakup of ice shelves, which could escalate ocean-bound ice discharge and ...thereby sea-level rise. Should ice shelves collapse, it is unclear whether they could recover, even if we meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Here, we use a numerical ice-sheet model to determine if Petermann Ice Shelf in northwest Greenland can recover from a future breakup. Our experiments suggest that post-breakup recovery of confined ice shelves like Petermann's is unlikely, unless iceberg calving is greatly reduced. Ice discharge from Petermann Glacier also remains up to 40% higher than today, even if the ocean cools below present-day temperatures. If this behaviour is not unique for Petermann, continued near-future ocean warming may push the ice shelves protecting Earth's polar ice sheets into a new retreated high-discharge state which may be exceedingly difficult to recover from.
The hypothesis of a km-thick ice shelf covering the entire Arctic Ocean during peak glacial conditions was proposed nearly half a century ago. Floating ice shelves preserve few direct traces after ...their disappearance, making reconstructions difficult. Seafloor imprints of ice shelves should, however, exist where ice grounded along their flow paths. Here we present new evidence of ice-shelf groundings on bathymetric highs in the central Arctic Ocean, resurrecting the concept of an ice shelf extending over the entire central Arctic Ocean during at least one previous ice age. New and previously mapped glacial landforms together reveal flow of a spatially coherent, in some regions >1-km thick, central Arctic Ocean ice shelf dated to marine isotope stage 6 (∼ 140 ka). Bathymetric highs were likely critical in the ice-shelf development by acting as pinning points where stabilizing ice rises formed, thereby providing sufficient back stress to allow ice shelf thickening.
Arctic Ocean sea ice proxies generally suggest a reduction in sea ice during parts of the early and middle Holocene (∼6000–10,000 years BP) compared to present day conditions. This sea ice minimum ...has been attributed to the northern hemisphere Early Holocene Insolation Maximum (EHIM) associated with Earth's orbital cycles. Here we investigate the transient effect of insolation variations during the final part of the last glaciation and the Holocene by means of continuous climate simulations with the coupled atmosphere–sea ice–ocean column model CCAM. We show that the increased insolation during EHIM has the potential to push the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover into a regime dominated by seasonal ice, i.e. ice free summers. The strong sea ice thickness response is caused by the positive sea ice albedo feedback. Studies of the GRIP ice cores and high latitude North Atlantic sediment cores show that the Bølling–Allerød period (c. 12,700–14,700 years BP) was a climatically unstable period in the northern high latitudes and we speculate that this instability may be linked to dual stability modes of the Arctic sea ice cover characterized by e.g. transitions between periods with and without perennial sea ice cover.
Submarine glacial landforms in fjords are imprints of the dynamic behaviour of marine-terminating glaciers and are informative about their most recent retreat phase. Here we use detailed multibeam ...bathymetry to map glacial landforms in Petermann Fjord and Nares Strait, northwestern Greenland. A large grounding-zone wedge (GZW) demonstrates that Petermann Glacier stabilised at the fjord mouth for a considerable time, likely buttressed by an ice shelf. This stability was followed by successive backstepping of the ice margin down the GZW's retrograde backslope forming small retreat ridges to 680 m current depth (∼730-800 m palaeodepth). Iceberg ploughmarks occurring somewhat deeper show that thick, grounded ice persisted to these water depths before final breakup occurred. The palaeodepth limit of the recessional moraines is consistent with final collapse driven by marine ice cliff instability (MICI) with retreat to the next stable position located underneath the present Petermann ice tongue, where the seafloor is unmapped.
Surface heat flow data in the Arctic Ocean are needed to assess hydrocarbon and methane hydrate distributions, and provide constraints into the tectonic origins and nature of underlying crust. ...However, across broad areas of the Arctic, few published measurements exist. This is true for the outer continental shelf and slope of the East Siberian Sea, and the adjoining deep water ridges and basins. Here we present 21 new surface heat flow measurements from this region of the Arctic Ocean. On the Southern Lomonosov Ridge, the average measured heat flow, uncorrected for effects of sedimentation and topography, is 57 ± 4 mW/m2 (n = 4). On the outer continental shelf and slope of the East Siberian Sea (ESS), the average is 57 ± 10 mW/m2 (n = 16). An anomalously high heat flow of 203 ± 28 mW/m2 was measured at a single station in the Herald Canyon. With the exception of this high heat flow, the new data from the ESS are consistent with predictions for thermally equilibrated lithosphere of continental origin that was last affected by thermotectonic processes in the Cretaceous to early Cenozoic. Variability within the data likely arises from differences in radiogenic heat production within the continental crust and overlying sediments. This can be further explored by comparing the data with geophysical constraints on sediment and crustal thicknesses.
Key Points:
Seventeen new heat flow measurements from the continental slope of the East Siberian Sea and four measurements form the southern Lomonosov Ridge
The data define a lower and less scattered estimate for the heat flow of the ESS slope than obtained from previously existing data
Anomalously high heat flow (203 ± 28 mW/m2) was found from the one station in Herald Canyon, proximal to the North Chukchi Basin
The Bering Strait connects the Arctic and Pacific oceans and separates the North American and Asian landmasses. The presently shallow ( ∼ 53 m) strait was exposed during the sea level lowstand of ...the last glacial period, which permitted human migration across a land bridge today referred to as the Bering Land Bridge. Proxy studies (stable isotope composition of foraminifera, whale migration into the Arctic Ocean, mollusc and insect fossils and paleobotanical data) have suggested a range of ages for the Bering Strait reopening, mainly falling within the Younger Dryas stadial (12.9–11.7 cal ka BP). Here we provide new information on the deglacial and post-glacial evolution of the Arctic–Pacific connection through the Bering Strait based on analyses of geological and geophysical data from Herald Canyon, located north of the Bering Strait on the Chukchi Sea shelf region in the western Arctic Ocean. Our results suggest an initial opening at about 11 cal ka BP in the earliest Holocene, which is later than in several previous studies. Our key evidence is based on a well-dated core from Herald Canyon, in which a shift from a near-shore environment to a Pacific-influenced open marine setting at around 11 cal ka BP is observed. The shift corresponds to meltwater pulse 1b (MWP1b) and is interpreted to signify relatively rapid breaching of the Bering Strait and the submergence of the large Bering Land Bridge. Although the precise rates of sea level rise cannot be quantified, our new results suggest that the late deglacial sea level rise was rapid and occurred after the end of the Younger Dryas stadial.
The hydrological cycle is expected to intensify in a warming climate. However, observational evidence of such changes in the Southern Ocean is difficult to obtain due to sparse measurements and a ...complex superposition of changes in precipitation, sea ice, and glacial meltwater. Here we disentangle these signals using a dataset of salinity and seawater oxygen isotope observations collected in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Our results show that the atmospheric water cycle has intensified in this region between 1993 and 2021, increasing the salinity in subtropical surface waters by 0.06 ± 0.07 g kg
per decade, and decreasing the salinity in subpolar surface waters by -0.02 ± 0.01 g kg
per decade. The oxygen isotope data allow to discriminate the different freshwater processes showing that in the subpolar region, the freshening is largely driven by the increase in net precipitation (by a factor two) while the decrease in sea ice melt is largely balanced by the contribution of glacial meltwater at these latitudes. These changes extend the growing evidence for an acceleration of the hydrological cycle and a melting cryosphere that can be expected from global warming.
Abstract
The continental shelves of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas contain large stocks of organic matter (OM) and methane (CH
4
), representing a potential ecosystem feedback to climate ...change not included in international climate agreements. We performed a structured expert assessment with 25 permafrost researchers to combine quantitative estimates of the stocks and sensitivity of organic carbon in the subsea permafrost domain (i.e. unglaciated portions of the continental shelves exposed during the last glacial period). Experts estimated that the subsea permafrost domain contains ∼560 gigatons carbon (GtC; 170–740, 90% confidence interval) in OM and 45 GtC (10–110) in CH
4
. Current fluxes of CH
4
and carbon dioxide (CO
2
) to the water column were estimated at 18 (2–34) and 38 (13–110) megatons C yr
−1
, respectively. Under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) RCP8.5, the subsea permafrost domain could release 43 Gt CO
2
-equivalent (CO
2
e) by 2100 (14–110) and 190 Gt CO
2
e by 2300 (45–590), with ∼30% fewer emissions under RCP2.6. The range of uncertainty demonstrates a serious knowledge gap but provides initial estimates of the magnitude and timing of the subsea permafrost climate feedback.
Although there is enough heat contained in inflowing warm Atlantic Ocean water to melt all Arctic sea ice within a few years, a cold halocline limits upward heat transport from the Atlantic water. ...The amount of heat that penetrates the halocline to reach the sea ice is not well known, but vertical heat transport through the halocline layer can significantly increase in the presence of double diffusive convection. Such convection can occur when salinity and temperature gradients share the same sign, often resulting in the formation of thermohaline staircases. Staircase structures in the Arctic Ocean have been previously identified and the associated double diffusive convection has been suggested to influence the Arctic Ocean in general and the fate of the Arctic sea ice cover in particular. A central challenge to understanding the role of double diffusive convection in vertical heat transport is one of observation. Here, we use broadband echo sounders to characterize Arctic thermohaline staircases at their full vertical and horizontal resolution over large spatial areas (100 s of kms). In doing so, we offer new insight into the mechanism of thermohaline staircase evolution and scale, and hence fluxes, with implications for understanding ocean mixing processes and ocean-sea ice interactions.
Coastal zones are transitional areas between land and sea where large amounts of organic and inorganic carbon compounds are recycled by microbes. Especially shallow zones near land have been shown to ...be the main source for oceanic methane (CH
) emissions. Water depth has been predicted as the best explanatory variable, which is related to CH
ebullition, but exactly how sediment methanotrophs mediates these emissions along water depth is unknown. Here, we investigated the relative abundance and RNA transcripts attributed to methane oxidation proteins of aerobic methanotrophs in the sediment of shallow coastal zones with high CH
concentrations within a depth gradient from 10-45 m. Field sampling consisted of collecting sediment (top 0-2 cm layer) from eight stations along this depth gradient in the coastal Baltic Sea. The relative abundance and RNA transcripts attributed to the CH
oxidizing protein (pMMO; particulate methane monooxygenase) of the dominant methanotroph Methylococcales was significantly higher in deeper costal offshore areas (36-45 m water depth) compared to adjacent shallow zones (10-28 m). This was in accordance with the shallow zones having higher CH
concentrations in the surface water, as well as more CH
seeps from the sediment. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the low prevalence of Methylococcales and RNA transcripts attributed to pMMO was restrained to the euphotic zone (indicated by Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) data, photosynthesis proteins, and 18S rRNA data of benthic diatoms). This was also indicated by a positive relationship between water depth and the relative abundance of Methylococcales and pMMO. How these processes are affected by light availability requires further studies. CH
ebullition potentially bypasses aerobic methanotrophs in shallow coastal areas, reducing CH
availability and limiting their growth. Such mechanism could help explain their reduced relative abundance and related RNA transcripts for pMMO. These findings can partly explain the difference in CH
concentrations between shallow and deep coastal areas, and the relationship between CH
concentrations and water depth.
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