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The Larsen Ice Shelf System, Antarctica (LARISSA):

Polar Systems Bound Together, Changing Fast

Julia S. Wellner, University of Houston, Dept. of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Science & Research Building 1, 3507 Cullen Blvd.,
Room 214, Houston, Texas 77204-5008, USA; Ted Scambos, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University
of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80303, USA; Eugene W. Domack*, College of Marine Science, University of South Florida,
140 7th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701-1567, USA; Maria Vernet, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of
California San Diego, 8622 Kennel Way, La Jolla, California 92037, USA; Amy Leventer, Colgate University, 421 Ho Science Center,
13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, New York 13346, USA; Greg Balco, Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley,
California 94709, USA; Stefanie Brachfeld, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey 07043, USA;
Mattias R. Cape, University of Washington, School of Oceanography, Box 357940, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA; Bruce Huber,
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, 61 US-9W, Palisades, New York 10964, USA; Scott Ishman, Southern
Illinois University, 1263 Lincoln Drive, Carbondale, Illinois 62901, USA; Michael L. McCormick, Hamilton College, 198 College
Hill Road, Clinton, New York 13323, USA; Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Dept. of Geography, Ohio State University, 1036 Derby Hall,
154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA; Erin C. Pettit , University of Alaska Fairbanks, Dept. of Geosciences, 900 Yukon
#
Drive, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775, USA; Craig R. Smith, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, 2500 Campus Road, Honolulu, Hawaii
96822, USA; Martin Truffer, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute, 2156 Koyukuk Drive, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775,
USA; Cindy Van Dover, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Grainger Hall, 9 Circuit Drive, Box 90328, Durham,
North Carolina 27708, USA; and Kyu-Cheul Yoo, Korea Polar Research Institute, 26 Songdomirae-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 21990, Korea

ABSTRACT to the rest of the planet as well—and it northerly sections of the Larsen Ice Shelf
Climatic, cryospheric, and biologic is generally warmer than the rest of disintegrated. Covered with melt ponds and
changes taking place in the northern Antarctica. Both its Holocene and modern riven with wide cracks, these 200-m-thick
Antarctic Peninsula provide examples for glaciological retreats offer a picture of how ice shelves lost thousands of square kilo‐
how ongoing systemic change may pro‐ larger areas of Antarctica farther south meters of area in just days to weeks (~1500
gress through the entire Antarctic system. might change under future warming. km and 3250 km , respectively, for the
2
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A large, interdisciplinary research project Larsen A and B ice shelves; for compari-
focused on the Larsen Ice Shelf system, INTRODUCTION son, Rhode Island is ~3150 km ). The lost
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synthesized here, has documented dramatic Ice sheets cover most of the Antarctic areas of ice broke into myriad small ice
ice cover, oceanographic, and ecosystem continent and, in some places along the blocks that toppled over, creating a rapidly
changes in the Antarctic Peninsula during margin, connect to ice that has flowed from expanding floating mass of ice rubble
the Holocene and the present period of the land and now floats above liquid water. (MacAyeal et al., 2003). These breakup
rapid regional warming. The responsive- These areas of floating ice, called ice events stunned glaciologists and have
ness of the region results from its position shelves, are dynamic in space and time and, become iconic examples of the effects of
in the climate and ocean system, in which a while their loss does not directly contribute global climate change, rapid regional
narrow continental block extends across to sea-level change since the ice is already warming, and ice-shelf instability.
zonal atmospheric and ocean flow, creating floating, they serve as a buttressing force to The Antarctic Peninsula has been among
high snow accumulation, strong gradients the glaciers behind them (Scambos et al., the fastest-warming areas on Earth. Data
and gyres, dynamic oceanography, outlet 2004). Among the most sensitive ice from weather stations and ice cores show a
glaciers feeding into many fjords and bays shelves are those in the northern Antarctic 2 to 3 °C increase in mean temperatures
having steep topography, and a continental Peninsula. The major iceberg calving event over the past 80 years (Zagorodnov et al.,
shelf that contains many glacially carved on the Larsen C Ice Shelf in 2017 refocused 2012; Barrand et al., 2013). The trend is
troughs separated by areas of glacial sedi- attention on the ongoing ice loss from the attributed to the combined, and probably
ment accumulation. The microcosm of the Larsen Ice Shelf and the rapid changes in linked, effects of an increased northwest-
northern Antarctic Peninsula has a ten- climate, ice, ocean, and life in this part of erly flow of warm, maritime air across the
dency to change rapidly—rapid relative not Antarctica. In January 1995 and again Antarctic Peninsula and a reduction in sea-
just to Antarctica’s mainland but compared in March 2002, large areas of the more ice extent in the northern Bellingshausen

*Deceased
# Now at Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, 104 CEOAS Admin. Building, Corvallis, Oregon 97331, USA.

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