Surface velocities of Wilkins Ice Shelf between 2006 and 2009, link to GeoTIFFs

Ice shelves serve as important buttresses for upstream areas. Several large ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula have disintegrated or retreated, which implied dynamic consequences for upstream ice. The present study aims to assess dynamic changes on Wilkins Ice Shelf during multi-stage ice-front retreat in the last decade. A total area of 2135 ± 75 km² was lost in the period 2008-2009. The present study uses time-series of SAR satellite observations (2006-2009) in order to derive variations in multi-temporal surface flow from intensity offset tracking methods. From these velocity field, spatial patterns of horizontal strain rate and stress components were inferred during different ice-front retreat stages (not part of the data publication). These fields are used to explain the different break-up stages and to evaluate the ice-shelf stability (see related publication Rankl et al. 2017). For this purpose, we apply criteria which were forwarded to explain and assess past ice-shelf retreat.

冰架是上游冰区的重要支撑结构。南极半岛的多个大型冰架已发生崩解或退缩，这将对上游冰体产生动力学影响。本研究旨在评估近十年内，威尔金斯冰架（Wilkins Ice Shelf）在多阶段冰缘退缩过程中的动力学变化。2008至2009年间，该冰架共丧失了2135±75平方千米的面积。本研究采用2006至2009年的合成孔径雷达（Synthetic Aperture Radar）卫星观测时序数据，通过强度偏移跟踪方法反演多时序表面流速变化。基于这些速度场，本研究还反演了不同冰缘退缩阶段下的水平应变率与应力分量的空间分布模式（本数据发布内容不包含该部分）。上述场数据被用于阐释不同崩解阶段，并评估冰架稳定性（详见Rankl等人2017年的相关研究）。为此，本研究采用了此前用于解释和评估过往冰架退缩过程的判定标准。