Increasing surface melt has been implicated in the collapse of several Antarctic ice shelves over the last few decades, including the collapse of Larsen B Ice Shelf over a period of just a few weeks in 2002. The speed at which an ice shelf disintegrates strongly determines the subsequent loss of grounded ice and sea level rise, but the controls on collapse speed are not well understood. Here we show, using a novel cellular automaton model, that there is an intrinsic speed limit on ice shelf collapse through cascades of interacting melt pond hydrofracture events. Though collapse speed increases with the area of hydrofracture influence, the typical flexural length scales of Antarctic ice shelves ensure that hydrofracture interactions remain localized. We argue that the speed at which Larsen B Ice Shelf collapsed was caused by a season of anomalously high surface meltwater production.
Forecast uncertainty associated with the prediction of snowfall amounts is a complex superposition of the uncertainty about precipitation amounts and ...
Stratification of the upper few meters of the ocean limits the penetration depth of wind mixing and the vertical distribution of atmospheric fluxes. S...
From the earliest observations of ozone in the lower atmosphere in the 19th century, both measurement methods and the portion of the globe observed ha...
2019 | Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 13439-13456
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We present airborne observations of the vertical gradient of atmospheric oxygen (δ (O2/N2)) and carbon dioxide (CO2) through the atmospheric boundary...
2019 | Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 7413–7428
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Deep convection can transport surface moisture and pollution from the planetary boundary layer to the upper troposphere (UT) within a few minutes. The...
An intensive coordinated airborne and ground-based measurement study was conducted in the Fayetteville Shale in northwestern Arkansas during September...
2019 | Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 12141-12156
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Ice crystals commonly adopt a horizontal orientation under certain aerodynamic and electrodynamic conditions that occur in the atmosphere. While the r...
2019 | Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 13576-13592
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Accuracy of cloud predictions in numerical weather models can considerably impact ozone (O-3) forecast skill. This study assesses the benefits in surf...
The ozonesonde is a small balloon-borne instrument that is attached to a standard radiosonde to measure profiles of ozone from the surface to 35 km wi...
2019 | Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 1061-1069.
Description:
Convective systems dominate the vertical transport of aerosols and trace gases. The most recent in situ aerosol measurements presented here show that ...
2019 | Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 1113-1120.
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Two recent studies using sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) observations to evaluate interhemispheric transport in two different ensembles of atmospheric chemi...
2019 | Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 57-71
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Arctic clouds can profoundly influence surface radiation and thus surface melt. Over Greenland, these cloud radiative effects (CRE) vary greatly with ...
In 2015 the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiated a 4-yr study, the Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2), to improve the representatio...
2019 | J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol. (2019) 58 (8): 1867–1886
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Measurements from spaceborne sensors have the unique capacity to fill spatial and temporal gaps in ground-based atmospheric observing systems, especia...
During winter 2016/17, California experienced numerous heavy precipitation events linked to land-falling atmospheric rivers (ARs) that filled reservoi...
Wind power installations have been increasing in recent years. Because wind turbines can influence local wind speeds, temperatures, and surface fluxes...
2019 | Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124(12), 6104-6119
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The width of the tropical Hadley circulation (HC) has garnered intense interest in recent decades, owing to the emerging evidence for its expansion in...
2019 | Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 2242-2252.
Description:
The double Intertropical Convergence Zone bias remains a persistent problem in coupled general circulation model simulations. Due to the strong sea su...