Journal article
Effects of an Explosive Polar Cyclone Crossing the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone
Marcello Vichi, Clare Eayrs, Alberto Alberello, Anriette BEKKER, Luke Bennetts, David Holland, Ehlke de Jong, Warren Joubert, Keith MacHutchon, Gabriele Messori, Jhon F Mojica, Miguel Onorato, Clinton Saunders, Sebastian Skatulla, Alessandro Toffoli
Geophysical Research Letters | American Geophysical Union (AGU) | Published : 2019
DOI: 10.1029/2019GL082457
Abstract
Antarctic sea ice shows a large degree of regional variability, which is partly driven by severe weather events. Here we bring a new perspective on synoptic sea ice changes by presenting the first in situ observations of an explosive extratropical cyclone crossing the winter Antarctic marginal ice zone (MIZ) in the South Atlantic. This is complemented by the analysis of subsequent cyclones and highlights the rapid variations that ice-landing cyclones cause on sea ice: Midlatitude warm oceanic air is advected onto the ice, and storm waves generated close to the ice edge contribute to the maintenance of an unconsolidated surface through which waves propagate far into the ice. MIZ features may ..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by National Research Foundation through the South African National Antarctic Program
Awarded by National Research Foundation through NRF-STINT bilateral programme
Awarded by Australian Antarctic Science Program
Awarded by Swedish Research Council
Awarded by Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education grant
Awarded by NYUAD Center for global Sea Level Change project
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was possible thanks to funding from the South African Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation through the South African National Antarctic Program (grants 93089, 104839, 105858) and the NRF-STINT bilateral programme (grant 112632). We are indebted to Captain Knowledge Bengu and the crew of the SA Agulhas II for their invaluable contribution to data collection. The contribution of the Department of Environmental Affairs (Oceans and Coasts) is also acknowledged. We would like to thank all the students onboard who contributed to the deployment of the instruments and for working nonstop under challenging conditions. M. V. wishes to thank Dorotea Iovino for the helpful discussions. A. A., L. B., and A. T. acknowledge support from the ACE Foundation and Ferring Pharmaceuticals and from the Australian Antarctic Science Program (project 4434). A. A. and A. T. also acknowledge the Air-sea ice Lab project. G. M. acknowledges the Swedish Research Council grant 201603724 and the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education grant SA2017-7063. C. E. was funded by NYUAD Center for global Sea Level Change project G1204. We would like to thank Philip Rodenbough and the Scientific Writing Program at New York University Abu Dhabi for feedback on the manuscript. The authors acknowledge the insightful comments of two anonymous reviewers who helped to improve the work. ERA5 and ERA-interim reanalyses were obtained from the Copernicus Climate Change Service Information and from the ECMWF website, respectively. The lowresolution sea ice drift product was downloaded from the EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF, www.osi-saf.org).MODIS Terra and SUOMI NPP/VIIRS daily mosaic images have been obtained online (worldview. earthdata. nasa. gov). Sea ice buoy and observation data are publicly available and referenced in the main text.