Some dynamics of water outflow from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf during 1995 and 1996

The paper presents two years of observations (1995 and 1996) for water
velocity and temperature near the Ross Ice Shelf edge, where a mooring,
composed of three current meters, five temperature and three conductivity
sensors, one turbidimeter, two sediment traps and one Acoustic Doppler
Current Profiler, was deployed. The mooring site was chosen to study the
behaviour of the Ice Shelf Water, within the framework of the Project on
the Climatic Long-term Interaction for the Mass balance in Antarctica of
the Italian National Programme for Antarctic Research.
The Ice Shelf Water outflow from below the Ross Ice Shelf is a persistent
phenomenon in this area, but it is characterized by impulsive injections
often associated with recirculation processes.
Two-years of data records of physical variables are investigated here in
order to analyse the Ice Shelf Water outflow behaviour and to give an
estimate of this feature. Our results show that the Ice Shelf Water events
have variable duration (from one to seven days) and present an interannual
variability in their timing. In spite of this, the mean Ice Shelf Water
outflow during the overlapping period of the two time series is quite
similar: 0.15 Sv for 1995 and 0.28 Sv for 1996.