Skip to main content
Dryad

Multi-year mosaics of Antarctic ice motion from satellite radar interferometry: 1995 to 2022

Abstract

Ice motion and ice boundary are critical information for ice sheet models that project ice evolution in a warming climate. We present four historical, continent-wide, maps of Antarctic ice motion for time period 1995-2022. The results reveal no change in the interior regions, block rotation and rift propagation along ice shelf fronts, and widespread glacier speedup that propagates from 10 km's to 100 km's inland. Speedup affects the entire drainage of the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) sector, the entire west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula down to GeorgeVI Ice Shelf, the east coast down to Larsen C Ice Shelf,  the Getz Ice Shelf, Hull and Land glaciers in West Antarctica;  Matusevitch, Ninnis and Mertz glaciers, glaciers in Porpoise Bay and Vincennes Bay, Denman Glacier  in Wilkes Land, and Robert, Wilmaand Rayner glaciers in Enderby Land, East Antarctica, which we attribute to faster melting by warmer ocean waters.