The Spatiotemporal Surface Velocity Variations and Analysis of the Amery Ice Shelf from 2000 to 2022, East Antarctica

The surface velocity of the Amery Ice Shelf (AIS) is vital to assessing its stability and mass balance. Previous studies have shown that the AIS basin has a stable multi-year average surface velocity. However, spatiotemporal variations in the surface velocity of the AIS and the underlying physical m...

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Published inRemote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 16; no. 17; p. 3255
Main Authors Ma, Yuanyuan, Wang, Zemin, Zhang, Baojun, An, Jiachun, Geng, Hong, Li, Fei
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.09.2024
Subjects
Accuracy
AIS thickness
Amery Ice Shelf
Annual variations
Climate change
fast-ice
Glaciers
Ice cover
Ice sheets
Ice shelves
Land ice
Mass balance
Ocean temperature
Registration
Satellites
Seasonal variations
Spatial distribution
Surface stability
Surface velocity
surface velocity variation
Thickness
Velocity
Antarctica
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Summary:The surface velocity of the Amery Ice Shelf (AIS) is vital to assessing its stability and mass balance. Previous studies have shown that the AIS basin has a stable multi-year average surface velocity. However, spatiotemporal variations in the surface velocity of the AIS and the underlying physical mechanism remain poorly understood. This study combined offset tracking and DInSAR methods to extract the monthly surface velocity of the AIS and obtained the inter-annual surface velocity from the ITS_LIVE product. An uneven spatial distribution in inter-annual variation in the surface velocity was observed between 2000 and 2022, although the magnitude of variation was small at less than 20.5 m/yr. The increase and decrease in surface velocity on the eastern and western-central sides of the AIS, respectively, could be attributed to the change in the thickness of the AIS. There was clear seasonal variation in monthly average surface velocity at the eastern side of the AIS between 2017 and 2021, which could be attributed to variations in the area and thickness of fast-ice and also to variations in ocean temperature. This study suggested that changes in fast-ice and ocean temperature are the main factors driving spatiotemporal variation in the surface velocity of the AIS.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs16173255