The Cryosphere

Transoceanic wave propagation links iceberg calving margins of Antarctica with storms in tropics and Northern Hemisphere

  1. Douglas R. MacAyeal1,
  2. Emile A. Okal2,
  3. Richard C. Aster3,
  4. Jeremy N. Bassis4,
  5. Kelly M. Brunt1,
  6. L. Mac. Cathles1,
  7. Robert Drucker5,
  8. Helen A. Fricker4,
  9. Young-Jin Kim1,
  10. Seelye Martin5,
  11. Marianne H. Okal1,
  12. Olga V. Sergienko8,
  13. Mark P. Sponsler6,
  14. Jonathan E. Thom7

Article first published online: 12 SEP 2006

DOI: 10.1029/2006GL027235

Issue

Geophysical Research Letters

Geophysical Research Letters

Volume 33, Issue 17, September 2006

Additional Information

How to Cite

MacAyeal, D. R., and et al. (2006), Transoceanic wave propagation links iceberg calving margins of Antarctica with storms in tropics and Northern Hemisphere, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L17502, doi:10.1029/2006GL027235.

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

  2. 2

    Department of Geological Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

  3. 3

    Geophysical Research Center and Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico, USA

  4. 4

    Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

  5. 5

    School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

  6. 6

    Stormsurf, Half Moon Bay, California, USA

  7. 7

    Antarctic Meteorological Research Centre, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

  8. 8

    Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 12 SEP 2006
  2. Article first published online: 12 SEP 2006
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 31 JUL 2006
  4. Manuscript Received: 14 JUN 2006

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[1] We deployed seismometers on the Ross Ice Shelf and on various icebergs adrift in the Ross Sea (including B15A, a large 100 km by 30 km fragment of B15, which calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in March, 2000). The data reveal that the dominant energy of these floating ice masses is in the 0.01 to 0.1 Hz band, and is associated with sea swell generated in the tropical and extra-tropical Pacific Ocean. In one example, a strong storm in the Gulf of Alaska on 21 October 2005, approximately 13,500 km from the Ross Sea, generated swell that arrived at B15A immediately prior to, and during, its break-up off Cape Adare on 27 October 2005. If sea swell influences iceberg calving and break-up, a teleconnection exists between the Antarctic ice sheet mass balance and weather systems worldwide.

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