Oceans are an important interface between the cryosphere and the global climate system, both due to the ocean’s ability to impact ice sheet mass balance and the cryosphere’s influence on global ocean circulation. Processes at the ice-ocean interface play a crucial role to the dynamics of tidewater glaciers and ice shelves, and associated fjord and cavity circulation. However, a complete understanding and accurate representation of these processes in models remains a major challenge and a source of uncertainty for projections of ice mass loss and sea-level rise. Recent work to understand ice-ocean interactions has led to significant progress in theory, idealised models, and coupled ice-ocean models. New observations of processes such as seawater intrusion at grounding lines and channelised ice-shelf melting can provide further insights into our understanding of this important climate interface. These continued efforts are essential to improving projections of future sea-level rise contributions from the Earth’s cryosphere under climate change.
In this session we aim to bring together the most up to date work on ice-ocean interactions, covering in-situ observations, remote-sensing, modelling and theory. We seek a bi-directional perspective, investigating both the impact of the ocean on the cryosphere and vice-versa. Topics for submission include, but are not limited to: coupled ice-ocean models, ice shelf cavity and fjord circulation, ice melange, subglacial meltwater plumes, basal and submarine melting and freshwater fluxes into the ocean. New observational datasets and methodologies are encouraged.
We welcome and encourage submissions from groups who are underrepresented in the cryosphere community and will endeavour to provide reasonable adjustments to any presenter who requires them.