Antarctic Coastline Schematic (IMAGE)

California Institute of Technology

Antarctic Coastline Schematic

Caption

Schematic diagram of the Antarctic coastline shows the continental shelf and slope (brown) and a glacier (white) terminating with a floating ice shelf. The colored section shows actual measurements of ocean temperature as collected from an ocean glider off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The warm tongue of water that extends towards the ice shelf is driven by ocean eddies, swirling patches of warm and cold water. These are shown schematically by the warm (red) and cold (blue) arrows that carry warm patches towards the ice shelf and cold patches away from the ice shelf. (Work published on Nov. 10 in Nature Geoscience. The paper is titled "Eddy transport as a key component of the Antarctic overturning circulation.")

Credit

Andrew Thompson/Caltech and Lance Hayashida/Caltech Marketing & Communications

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