Ice Shelves and Icebergs

Ice Shelves
• Ice Shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice
attached to a coastline and extending out over the
ocean as a seaward extension of the grounded ice
sheet

• Ice shelves range in thickness from about 50 to 600m

and some shelves persist for thousands of years

• They fringe the continent of Antarctica, and occupy a

few fjords and bays along the Greenland and
Ellesmere Island coasts of Canada (an ice shelf
occupying a fjord is sometimes called an ice tongue)
Fjord – Deep narrow glacial trough. V-shaped
glaciated valley below sea level.

Bay – Large body of water connected to an

ocean or sea formed by an inlet of land due to
surrounding land blocking some waves and often
reducing winds.
• At their seaward edge, ice shelves calve ice bergs, some
the size of a small US state or European country

• Because they are exposed to both warming air above and

warming ocean below, ice shelves and ice tongues
respond more quickly than ice sheets or glaciers to rising
temperatures.

• Ice from enormous ice sheets slowly oozes into the sea
through glaciers and ice streams.

• If the ocean is cold enough, then newly arrived ice does

not melt right away.
• Instead it may float on the surface and grow larger as
glacial ice behind it continues to flow into the sea.

• Ice shelves grow when they gain ice from land and
occasionally shrink when ice bergs calved off their edges.
This give and take helps them to maintain a dynamic
stability

•Along protected coastlines, the resulting ice shelves can

survive for thousands of years bolstered by the rock of
peninsulas and Islands.
• After the 2002 Larsen B ice shelf disintegration,
nearby glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula accelerated
up to eight times their original speed over the next
eighteen months.

• Similar losses of ice tongues in Greenland have

caused speed ups of 2 to 3 times the flow rate in just
one year.
• Ice shelves fall into three categories:
1. Ice shelves fed by glaciers
2. Ice shelves created by sea ice
3. Composite ice shelves

• Most of the world’s ice shelves, including the

largest, are fed by glaciers and are located in
Greenland and Antarctica

• Ward Hunt ice shelf off the coast of Ellesmere

Island in Northern Canada is an example of an ice
shelf composed of compacted, thickened sea ice
17 ice shelves
around
Antarctic
coast
Antarctica has 17 ice shelves and
10 largest appear in this map

Antarctica's major ice shelf areas: These ice shelf areas can easily be seen in NSIDC's Mosaic of
Antarctica. Image courtesy Scambos et al. 2007.

Wilkins ice shelf is composite – comprised of both glacier fed ice and fast ice thickened by snow
fall. The others are glacier fed.
Six ice shelves in Ellesmere Island, Northern Canada
Ellesmere Island, Northern Canada
Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
 Why does Ice shelf collapse?
• This is attributed to warmer air and water
temperatures as well as increased melt on the ice
shelf surface. Retreating sea ice also plays a role
Explanation
 Warm air melts the ice shelf surface, forming
ponds of melt water.
 As the water trickles down through small cracks in
the ice shelves, it deepens, erodes and expands
those cracks.
 In a separate process warmer water melts the ice
shelf from below, thinning it and making it more
vulnerable to cracking.
 From the recent examples of Antarctic peninsula and Canadian
ice shelves, it has been found that warm temperatures alone do
not fully explain rapid ice shelf collapse.

 Recent research suggests that waning sea ice surrounding the

ice shelves might have also contributed to the collapses

 Sea ice provides a layer of protection between ice shelf and the
surrounding ocean, muting the power of large waves and storms.

 As sea ice decreases, more waves buffet the ice shelves

 The largest waves can buckle and bend an ice shelf, increasing
instability and possibly contributing to a collapse.
 Loose tooth, 1963: In 1963, the
CORONA mission captured this
image of a gap on the Amery Ice
Shelf. The gap was left by the
calving of an earlier loose tooth.
Image courtesy Helen A. Fricker,
Scripps Institution of
Oceanography.

Loose tooth, 2001: These Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) images show
the progression of a "loose tooth"—an iceberg calving from the Amery Ice Shelf. Images
courtesy NASA Earth Observatory, Clare Averill and David J. Diner, Jet Propulsion
Laboratory; and Helen A. Fricker, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
ELLESMERE ISLAND
CANADA

Ward Hunt Ice Shelf: This ice shelf is an example of a shelf made from
compressed sea ice. This Canadian RADARSAT image shows the shelf in August
2002, when a crack made its way down the length of the shelf. Image courtesy
Alaska Satellite Facility, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Ice Shelf Retreat along the Ellesmere Coast: Between July 22 (top) and August 29
(bottom), 2008, the six ice shelves remaining in the Canadian Arctic experienced
major losses. By late August, Ellesmere ice shelves had lost a total of 214 square
kilometers (83 square miles). Images courtesy NASA Earth Observatory.
 Animation of Jan 31, Feb 23 and Mar 17, 2002 images.

Disintegration of the Larsen B Ice Shelf: The event began on January 31,
2002. Several weeks later, the ice shelf had completely shattered. MODIS
image courtesy Ted Scambos and Terry Haran, National Snow and Ice Data
Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.
Larsen B ice shelf - Jan 31, 2002
Larsen B ice shelf - 23 Feb, 2002
Larsen B ice shelf – March 17, 2002
 Observations based on Jan, Feb
and March, 2002

MODIS images – satellite pictures showed larger

disintegration in 2002 than what occurred in 1995.
Between 31 Jan – 5 March 2002, approxiamtely 3250
sqkm of Larsen B shattered releasing 720 billion
tonnes of ice into the Weddell sea. It was the single
largest disintegration in 30 years of iceshelf
monitoring. Preliminary studies of sediment cores
suggest that it may have been this ice shelves first
collapse in 12000 years (sea floor evidence of Larsen
ice sheet break up)
Larsen B Ice Shelf,
Antarctica
Landsat 7 Science Team
and NASA GSFC
Satellite: Landsat 7
Sensor: ETM+
Feb 2002
Extent of Larsen Ice Shelf retreat: Colored lines mark the ice shelf's extent in 1947,
1961, 1993, and 2002. MODIS image courtesy Ted Scambos, National Snow and Ice
Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder
Iceberg A54 calving: Top: Aerial photo of the A54 iceberg calving from the Scar Inlet Shelf (the remainder of the
Larsen Ice Shelf). Photo courtesy Ted Scambos, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.
Bottom: NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer images courtesy NASA Earth Observatory.
 Icebergs
• An iceberg is a floating mass of fresh water ice that has broken from
the seaward end of a glacier or a polar icesheet

• Ice bergs are typically found in open areas around Greenland and
Antarctica

• They form mostly during the spring and summer, when warmer
weather increases the rate of calving (separation) of icebergs at the
boundaries of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and smaller
outlying glaciers.

• In Northern Hemisphere, for ex:- about 10000 icebergs are produced

each year from the west Greenland glaciers, and an average of 375
flow south of Newfoundland into the North Atlantic shipping lanes,
where they are a hazard to navigation
What are the shapes and sizes of icebergs?
SIZE CATEGORY HEIGHT(FT) HEIGHT(M) LENGTH(FT) LENGTH(M)
Growler <3 <1 < 16 <5
Bergy Bit 3-13 1-4 15-46 5-14

Small 14-50 5-15 47-200 15-60

Medium 51-150 16-45 201-400 61-122
Large 151-240 46-75 401-670 123-213
Very Large Over 240 Over 75 Over 670 Over 213
• Icebergs of the Antarctic are more abundant and are
of enormous dimensions compared with those in the
Arctic. 93% of the world’s mass of icebergs is found
surrounding the Antarctic

• Usually 1/8 of an iceberg is above the water line.

That part consists of snow, which is not compact.

• The ice in the cold core is very compact (and thus

relatively heavy) and keeps 7/8 of the iceberg under
water.
• The temperature in the core is constant
between -15º and -20ºC.

• An iceberg that has tumbled over several

times has lost its light snow layers and so
the iceberg gets relatively heavier than
before and because of the greater
compactness only 1/10 rises above the
surface
 Iceberg Floatation
Mass of iceberg = Mi
Volume of Iceberg = Vi
Mass density of ice = Mi/Vi = ρi ~ 0.90gm/cm³
(Iceberg ice is more dense than normal ice since it
has been compressed by thousands of years of
pressure – normal ice is 0.917 gm/cm³)

Iceberg floats and let us say the volume below the

surface of water is Vw. This is the volume of water
displaced and the buoyant force is equal to the
weight of that displaced water, which has mass Mw
= Vwρw
The mass density of liquid water was originally used
to define the gram so it has
convenient metric value = 1gm/cm³

Sea water on the other hand is more dense, therefore

we use ρw = 1.035gm/cm³

The weight of an object is given by its mass times the

acceleration of its gravity, g = 9.8m/s² W = Mg

Weight of iceberg Wi = Mig and the buoyant force is

equal to the weight of the displaced water, Ww = Mwg.
 Since, iceberg is floating, its weight exactly balances
the buoyant forces

Ww = Wi
Mwg = Mig
Vwρwg = Viρig
Vw = (ρi/ρw) Vi

So, the fraction of ice under water, Vw/Vi, is given by

the ratio of densities ρi/ρw = 0.87.
Over 87% of an iceberg’s volume (and mass) is under
water.

The convenient definition of the gram gives a quick

way to see how much of a floating substance lies below
the surface of fresh water: The fraction is equal to that
substance’s mass density in gm/cm³
East Antarctic ice sheet produces vast quantities of tabular icebergs – size of small countries. Eastern Weddell sea.
Recently calved icebergs. Numerous intersecting crevasse on the upper surface, smooth areas of sea ice, ice debris
resulting from collision of adjacent bergs. Bergs tilt indicating early stages of disintegration
 Tabular Iceberg Shape Classifications

TABULAR: An iceberg with steep sides and flat top having a length-to-height ratio
greater than 5:1. Many show horizontal banding.
Non-Tabular Iceberg Shape Classifications

DOME: An iceberg with a rounded top

PINNACLE: An iceberg with one or more spires
WEDGE: An iceberg having a steep vertical side on one end and sloping
on the other
Many icebergs in the Arctic are about 45 meters tall and
180 meters long.
US Coast Guard C130 airplane flying over a large iceberg
US Coast Guard International Ice Patrol Image