203 research outputs found

    Программа автоматизированного расчёта параметров прокатки, в комплексе «приводная – неприводная клети»

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    Разработан алгоритм программы автоматизированного расчёта параметров процесса прокатки в комплексе ПК–НК и программа на языке С++, обеспечиваю- щая расчёт энергосиловых и технологических параметров прокатки в комплексе ПК–НК с учётом ограничивающих процесс факторов

    A temperate former West Antarctic ice sheet suggested by an extensive zone of bed channels

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    Several recent studies predict that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will become increasingly unstable under warmer conditions. Insights on such change can be assisted through investigations of the subglacial landscape, which contains imprints of former ice-sheet behavior. Here, we present radio-echo sounding data and satellite imagery revealing a series of ancient large sub-parallel subglacial bed channels preserved in the region between the Möller and Foundation Ice Streams, West Antarctica. We suggest that these newly recognized channels were formed by significant meltwater routed along the icesheet bed. The volume of water required is likely substantial and can most easily be explained by water generated at the ice surface. The Greenland Ice Sheet today exemplifies how significant seasonal surface melt can be transferred to the bed via englacial routing. For West Antarctica, the Pliocene (2.6–5.3 Ma) represents the most recent sustained period when temperatures could have been high enough to generate surface melt comparable to that of present-day Greenland. We propose, therefore, that a temperate ice sheet covered this location during Pliocene warm periods

    Climate and surface mass balance of coastal West Antarctica resolved by regional climate modelling

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    West Antarctic climate and surface mass balance (SMB) records are sparse. To fill this gap, regional atmospheric climate modelling is useful, providing that such models are employed at sufficiently high horizontal resolution and coupled with a snow model. Here we present the results of a high-resolution (5.5 km) regional atmospheric climate model (RACMO2) simulation of coastal West Antarctica for the period 1979–2015. We evaluate the results with available in situ weather observations, remote-sensing estimates of surface melt, and SMB estimates derived from radar and firn cores. Moreover, results are compared with those from a lower-resolution version, to assess the added value of the resolution. The high-resolution model resolves small-scale climate variability invoked by topography, such as the relatively warm conditions over ice-shelf grounding zones, and local wind speed accelerations. Surface melt and SMB are well reproduced by RACMO2. This dataset will prove useful for picking ice core locations, converting elevation changes to mass changes, for driving ocean, ice-sheet and coupled models, and for attributing changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and shelves to changes in atmospheric forcing

    Antarctic surface melting dynamics : enhanced perspectives from radar scatterometer data

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    Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 117 (2012): F02023, doi:10.1029/2011JF002126.Antarctic ice sheet surface melting can regionally influence ice shelf stability, mass balance, and glacier dynamics, in addition to modulating near-surface physical and chemical properties over wide areas. Here, we investigate variability in surface melting from 1999 to 2009 using radar backscatter time series from the SeaWinds scatterometer aboard the QuikSCAT satellite. These daily, continent-wide observations are explored in concert with in situ meteorological records to validate a threshold-based melt detection method. Radar backscatter decreases during melting are significantly correlated with in situ positive degree-days as well as meltwater production determined from energy balance modeling at Neumayer Station, East Antarctica. These results support the use of scatterometer data as a diagnostic indicator of melt intensity (i.e., the relative liquid water production during melting). Greater spatial and temporal melting detected relative to previous passive microwave-based studies is attributed to a higher sensitivity of the scatterometer instrument. Continental melt intensity variability can be explained in part by the dynamics of the Southern Annular Mode and the Southern Oscillation Index, and extreme melting events across the Ross Ice Shelf region may be associated with El Niño conditions. Furthermore, we find that the Antarctic Peninsula accounts for only 20% of Antarctic melt extent but greater than 50% of the total Antarctic melt intensity. Over most areas, annual melt duration and intensity are proportional. However, regional and localized distinctions exist where the melt intensity metric provides greater insight into melting dynamics than previously obtainable with other remote sensing techniques.Support for this research was provided by NASA grant NNX10AP09G and NSF grant ANT-063203.2012-11-1

    Meltwater produced by wind–albedo interaction stored in an East Antarctic ice shelf

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    Surface melt and subsequent firn air depletion can ultimately lead to disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves1,2 causing grounded glaciers to accelerate3 and sea level to rise. In the Antarctic Peninsula, foehn winds enhance melting near the grounding line4, which in the recent past has led to the disintegration of the most northerly ice shelves5,6. Here, we provide observational and model evidence that this process also occurs over an East Antarctic ice shelf, where meltwaterinduced firn air depletion is found in the grounding zone. Unlike the Antarctic Peninsula, where foehn events originate from episodic interaction of the circumpolar westerlies with the topography, in coastal East Antarctica high temperatures are caused by persistent katabatic winds originating from the ice sheet’s interior. Katabatic winds warm and mix the air as it flows downward and cause widespread snow erosion, explaining >3 K higher near-surface temperatures in summer and surface melt doubling in the grounding zone compared with its surroundings. Additionally, these winds expose blue ice and firn with lower surface albedo, further enhancing melt. The in situ observation of supraglacial flow and englacial storage of meltwater suggests that ice-shelf grounding zones in East Antarctica, like their Antarctic Peninsula counterparts, are vulnerable to hydrofracturing7

    Climatically sensitive transfer of iron to maritime Antarctic ecosystems by surface runoff

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    Iron supplied by glacial weathering results in pronounced hotspots of biological production in an otherwise iron-limited Southern Ocean Ecosystem. However, glacial iron inputs are thought to be dominated by icebergs. Here we show that surface runoff from three island groups of the maritime Antarctic exports more filterable (<0.45 μm) iron (6–81 kg km−2 a−1) than icebergs (0.0–1.2 kg km−2 a−1). Glacier-fed streams also export more acid-soluble iron (27.0–18,500 kg km−2 a−1) associated with suspended sediment than icebergs (0–241 kg km−2 a−1). Significant fluxes of filterable and sediment-derived iron (1–10 Gg a−1 and 100–1,000 Gg a−1, respectively) are therefore likely to be delivered by runoff from the Antarctic continent. Although estuarine removal processes will greatly reduce their availability to coastal ecosystems, our results clearly indicate that riverine iron fluxes need to be accounted for as the volume of Antarctic melt increases in response to 21st century climate change

    Global environmental consequences of twenty-first-century ice-sheet melt

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    Government policies currently commit us to surface warming of three to four degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, which will lead to enhanced ice-sheet melt. Ice-sheet discharge was not explicitly included in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5, so effects on climate from this melt are not currently captured in the simulations most commonly used to inform governmental policy. Here we show, using simulations of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets constrained by satellite-based measurements of recent changes in ice mass, that increasing meltwater from Greenland will lead to substantial slowing of the Atlantic overturning circulation, and that meltwater from Antarctica will trap warm water below the sea surface, creating a positive feedback that increases Antarctic ice loss. In our simulations, future ice-sheet melt enhances global temperature variability and contributes up to 25 centimetres to sea level by 2100. However, uncertainties in the way in which future changes in ice dynamics are modelled remain, underlining the need for continued observations and comprehensive multi-model assessments
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