Oral Presentation AMOS Annual Meeting and International Conference on Tropical Meteorology and Oceanography

Lagrangian connectivity and residence time of warm Circumpolar Deep Water on the Antarctic continental shelf (#144)

Veronica Tamsitt 1 2 , Matthew England 1 , Steve Rintoul 2 3
  1. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research, Hobart, TAS, Australia
  3. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, TAS, Australia

The inflow of relatively warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) onto the Antarctic Continental Shelf and into ice shelf cavities is a key driver of Antarctic ice shelf mass loss. While there have been recent advances in understanding the processes that control the rate of CDW transport onto the continental shelf in different regions around Antarctic, there is a gap in understanding the fate and residence time of the CDW on the shelf. Here we use Lagrangian particle tracking experiments in a high resolution circum-Antarctic ocean-ice model to map both the pathways and residence times of CDW on the Antarctic continental shelf. We investigate how residence times and transformation of CDW vary by region along the continental shelf. Finally we discuss the potential mechanisms for the observed residence times.