Sea Ice-ocean Modelling of the Antarctic Shelf Seas
Petty, Alek¹; Feltham, Daniel²; Holland, Paul^3
1UCL, UNITED KINGDOM; ²Reading University, UNITED KINGDOM; ³British Antarctic Survey, UNITED KINGDOM

The Antarctic continental shelf seas feature a bimodal distribution of water-mass temperature, with the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas flooded by Circumpolar Deep Water that is several degrees Celsius warmer than the cold shelf waters prevalent in the Weddell and Ross seas. In my research I am using a sea ice climate model component coupled to a simple ocean mixed layer model to investigate the cause of this bimodal distribution. I am also investigating temporal trends in the Antarctic sea ice-ocean system over the last several decades, where I compare trends in the model output to trends in the available satellite data. I am therefore interested in new data/missions to help us to understand how effective our models are in predicting the evolution of this complex system.