A new study appeared in Nature Geoscience (Jenkins et al., 2018) analyzed ocean temperature, salinity, dissolved-oxygen and current measurements from 2000 to 2016 near the Dotson Ice Shelf in the Amundsen Sea to determine temporal changes in net basal melting. The study showed that a decadal cycle dominates the ocean record, which is highly correlates with time-integral of central tropical Pacific SST anomalies. A warm subsurface ocean (200 ~ 700 m) period that peaked around 2005-2011 coincided with ice-shelf thinning and retreat of the grounding line, which was recovered during a post-2011 cool phase.
Jenkins, A., Shoosmith, D., Dutrieux, P., Jacobs, S., Kim, T. W., Lee, S. H., … & Stammerjohn, S. (2018). West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat in the Amundsen Sea driven by decadal oceanic variability. Nature Geoscience. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0207-4.
Ocean to Climate 
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