The Cryosphere, 15, 4179–4199, 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4179-2021 © Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. The Antarctic Coastal Current in the Bellingshausen Sea Ryan Schubert1, Andrew F. Thompson3, Kevin Speer1, Lena Schulze Chretien4, and Yana Bebieva1,2 1Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA 2Department of Scientific Computing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA 3Environmental Science and Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 4Department of Biology and Marine Science, Marine Science Research Institute, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida, USA Correspondence: Ryan Schubert (
[email protected]) Received: 4 February 2021 – Discussion started: 19 February 2021 Revised: 20 July 2021 – Accepted: 21 July 2021 – Published: 1 September 2021 Abstract. The ice shelves of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet 1 Introduction experience basal melting induced by underlying warm, salty Circumpolar Deep Water. Basal meltwater, along with runoff from ice sheets, supplies fresh buoyant water to a circula- The Antarctic continental slope in West Antarctica, spanning tion feature near the coast, the Antarctic Coastal Current the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) to the western Amund- (AACC). The formation, structure, and coherence of the sen Sea, is characterized by a shoaling of the subsurface tem- AACC has been well documented along the West Antarc- perature maximum, which allows warm, salty Circumpolar tic Peninsula (WAP). Observations from instrumented seals Deep Water (CDW) greater access to the continental shelf. collected in the Bellingshausen Sea offer extensive hydro- This leads to an increase in the oceanic heat content over the graphic coverage throughout the year, providing evidence of shelf in this region compared to other Antarctic shelf seas the continuation of the westward flowing AACC from the (Schmidtko et al., 2014).