Some dynamics of water outflow from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf during 1995 and 1996

Abstract

The paper presents two years of observations (1995 and 1996) for water velocity and temperature near the Ross Ice Shelf edge, where a mooring, composed of three current meters, five temperature and three conductivity sensors, one turbidimeter, two sediment traps and one Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, was deployed. The mooring site was chosen to study the behaviour of the Ice Shelf Water, within the framework of the Project on the Climatic Long-term Interaction for the Mass balance in Antarctica of the Italian National Programme for Antarctic Research. The Ice Shelf Water outflow from below the Ross Ice Shelf is a persistent phenomenon in this area, but it is characterized by impulsive injections often associated with recirculation processes. Two years of data records of physical variables are investigated here in order to analyse the Ice Shelf Water outflow behaviour and to give an estimate of this feature. Our results show that the Ice Shelf Water events have variable duration (from one to seven days) and present an interannual variability in their timing. In spite of this, the mean Ice Shelf Water outflow during the overlapping period of the two time series is quite similar: 0.15 Sv for 1995 and 0.28 Sv for 1996.