Transoceanic wave propagation links iceberg calving margins of Antarctica with storms in tropics and Northern Hemisphere

Abstract

We deployed seismometers on the Ross Ice Shelf and on various icebergs adrift in the Ross Sea (including B15 A, a large 100 km by 30 km fragment of B15, which calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in March, 2000). The data reveal that the dominant energy of these floating ice masses is in the 0.01 to 0.1 Hz band, and is associated with sea swell generated in the tropical and extra-tropical Pacific Ocean. In one example, a strong storm in the Gulf of Alaska on 21 October 2005, approximately 13,500 km from the Ross Sea, generated swell that arrived at B15A immediately prior to, and during, its break-up off Cape Adare on 27 October 2005. If sea swell influences iceberg calving and break-up, a teleconnection exists between the Antarctic ice sheet mass balance and weather systems worldwide. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.