The interaction between the ocean and the cryosphere in the Southern Ocean has become a major focus in climate research. Antarctic climate change has captured public attention, which has spawned a number of research questions, such as: What to expect in a new Antarctic sea ice regime? Where and when will ocean-driven melting of ice shelves yield a tipping point in the Antarctic climate? Which processes drive the redistribution of heat around Antarctica and onto the shelf? How is Antarctic Bottom Water production affected by changing ice-ocean interactions? What role do ice-related processes play in nutrient upwelling on the continental shelf and in triggering carbon export to deep waters? We look out for progress in observing and understanding the interaction — and changes thereof — between ice shelf, sea-ice, ocean and atmosphere in a rapidly warming climate.

Recent advances in observational technology, data coverage, and modelling provide scientists with a better understanding of the mechanisms involving ice-ocean interactions in the far South. Processes on the Antarctic continental shelf have been identified as missing links between the cryosphere, the global atmosphere and the deep open ocean that need to be captured in large-scale and global model simulations.
This session calls for studies on physical and biogeochemical oceanography linked to ice shelves and sea ice. This includes work on all scales, from local to basin-scale to circumpolar; as well as paleo, present-day and future applications. As the community gears up for a circumpolar, year-round internationally coordinated campaign: Antarctica InSync, we would like to highlight the importance of seasonality and lack of winter data as an overarching challenge. Studies based on in-situ observations and remote sensing, and employing regional to global models as well as AI tools are welcome. We particularly invite cross-disciplinary topics involving glaciology, sea ice physics and biological oceanography.