Marine Ice Sheet

Marine ice sheets are continental ice masses resting on bedrock below sea level (Schoof, 2007). Large portions of its ice rest on the ocean floor well below sea level and its edges flow into floating ice shelves for miles out into the sea. The importance of the transition zone between grounded and floating ice in controlling the dynamics of marine ice sheets was pointed out in seventies by Weertman (1974). Dynamics of marine ice sheets are similar to those of land-based ice sheets except that they must couple with the surrounding floating ice shelves at the grounding line, where the ice reaches a critical flotation thickness. Marine ice sheets can lose mass not only through melting, but also through outflow of ice into the surrounding ice shelves. The stability of a marine ice sheet strongly depends on the basal slope and/or changes in the cross-sectional area. The transition from ice-sheet to ice-shelf flow takes place in case of rapidly sliding ice sheets.

Marine ice sheets are...