SOUND FILE: Antarctic Ice Shelf "Sings" as Winds Whip Across its Surface

National Science Foundation
Office of Polar Programs
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Posted October 17, 2018

Winds blowing across snow dunes on Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf cause the massive ice slab's surface to vibrate, producing a near-constant set of seismic "tones" scientists could potentially use to monitor changes in the ice shelf from afar, according to new research.

"It's kind of like you're blowing a flute, constantly, on the ice shelf," said Julien Chaput, a geophysicist and mathematician at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and lead author of the new study published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The Ross Ice Shelf is Antarctica's largest, a Texas-sized plate of glacial ice fed from the icy continent's interior that floats atop the Southern Ocean. The ice shelf buttresses adjacent ice sheets on Antarctica's mainland, impeding ice flow from land into water, like a cork in a bottle.

Read more in a news release here: https://news.agu.org/press-release/antarctic-ice-shelf-sings-as-winds-whip-across-its-surface/

The sensors which gathered the data were supported by a collaborative OPP award: Mantle Structure and Dynamics of the Ross Sea from a Passive Seismic Deployment on the Ross Ice Shelf / https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1142518

Research on the effects of wave-induced vibrations on ice shelves was supported by this collaborative award: Dynamic Response of the Ross Ice Shelf to Wave-induced Vibrations / https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1246151

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w56RxaX9THY