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Change and variability in Antarctic coastal exposure, 1979-2020

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posted on 2023-05-21, 14:34 authored by Phillip ReidPhillip Reid, Robert MassomRobert Massom
Increased exposure of Antarctica’s coastal environment to open ocean and waves due to loss of a protective sea-ice “buffer” has important ramifications for ice-shelf stability, coastal erosion, important ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions and shallow benthic ecosystems. Here, we introduce a climate and environmental metric based on the ongoing long-term satellite sea-ice concentration record, namely Coastal Exposure Length. This is a daily measure of change and variability in the length and incidence of Antarctic coastline lacking any protective sea-ice buffer offshore. For 1979–2020, ~50% of Antarctica’s ~17,850-km coastline had no sea ice offshore each summer, with minimal exposure in winter. Regional summer/maximum contributions vary from 45% (Amundsen-Bellingshausen seas) to 58% (Indian Ocean and Ross Sea), with circumpolar annual exposure ranging from 38% (2019) to 63% (1993). The annual maximum length of Antarctic coastal exposure decreased by ~30 km (~0.32%) per year for 1979–2020, composed of distinct regional and seasonal contributions.

History

Publication title

Nature Communications

Volume

13

Article number

1164

Number

1164

Pagination

1-11

ISSN

2041-1723

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Other environmental management not elsewhere classified

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