Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.

OS1.6
Under cover: The Southern Ocean’s connection to sea ice and ice shelves
Co-organized as CR6.2
Convener: Torge Martin | Co-conveners: Xylar Asay-Davis, Nadine Steiger, Ralph Timmermann

In recent years the interaction between the ocean and the cryosphere in the marginal seas of the Southern Ocean has become a major focus in climate research. Questions such as "Why does Antarctic sea ice not decline?", "What controls the inflow of warm water into ice shelf cavities?", and "How does this affect ice sheet stability and sea level?" have attracted scientific and public attention. Recent advances in observational technology, data coverage, and modeling provide scientists with new opportunities to understand the mechanisms involving ice-ocean interaction in the far South much better. Processes on the Antarctic continental shelf have been identified as missing links between the cryosphere and the deep open ocean that need to be captured in large-scale and global model simulations.

This session calls for studies of the Southern Ocean's marginal seas including the Antarctic continental shelf and ice shelf cavities. Physical and biogeochemical interactions between ice shelves, sea ice and the open ocean are of major interest, as are consequences for the greater Antarctic climate system. This includes work on all scales, from local to basin-scale to circumpolar. Studies based on in-situ observations and remote sensing as well as regional to global models are welcome. We particularly invite cross-disciplinary topics involving physical and biological oceanography, glaciology or biogeochemistry.