Modelling ice–ocean interactions in the Totten Glacier area, East Antarctica, under present and future conditions

The Antarctic Climate is characterized by strong interactions between the ocean, cryosphere and atmosphere and it plays a key role in the Earth’s Climate by driving the storage and redistribution of heat, freshwater and CO2. However, our understanding of the Antarctic Climate processes are still limited due to the scarcity of in-situ observations. In addition, climate models are biased when simulating the current state of the climate and disagree on the future of Antarctica. The missing piece of the puzzle might be the small-scale processes. These climate processes, that take place at scale smaller than 100 km, are particularly hard to observe and cannot be explicitly resolved by most climate models due to they coarse horizontal resolution. In this thesis, we study the role of some small-scale processes in the interactions between the ocean and the cryosphere using a high-resolution numerical model. We focus on the Totten Glacier area in East Antarctica, a region of Antarctic fast ice, grounded icebergs, coastal polynyas, ice shelves and modified Circumpolar Deep Water. With the development of a regional configuration, high-resolution ocean-ice sheet-sea ice model, we investigate a first formulation to represent the Antarctic fast ice, the effect of a warming climate on the ice-ocean interactions and the effect of the ice sheet-ocean coupling on the ice-ocean interactions. Our findings indicate that these small-scale processes could have significant implications for the dynamics of the Antarctic Climate and its response to anthropogenic forcing. This thesis contributes to our comprehension of rarely observed processes and underscores the importance of including them in climate models. By recognizing the significance of these processes, we can improve the accuracy of climate projections and ultimately make more informed decisions to address climate change.