WINDS ARE DOMINANT CAUSE OF ICE SHEET LOSSES

Wind-induced circulation changes in the ocean are the dominant cause of the recent ice losses through the glaciers draining both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, not "global warming," according to two new studies.

The first study, published in Nature Geoscience, found that there has been a rapid acceleration of several outlet glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica; most notably, Jakobshavn Isbræ, a large outlet glacier feeding a deep-ocean fjord on Greenland's west coast, triggered by the arrival of relatively warm water originating from the Irminger Sea near Iceland.

The second study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, focused on the delivery of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) to the inner continental shelf around Pine Island Bay (Antarctica). The most significant result was that temperature changes in CDW related to regional wind, driving seasonal on-shelf flow, while inter-annual changes in the wind forcing lead to inflow variability on a decadal timescale...

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