The melt of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will be the main contributor to sea level rise this century if current trends are maintained. While several studies associate the accelerating melt with warm oceanic waters found at the marine boundary of ice sheets, the processes responsible for transporting these warm waters onshore remain unclear. The results from an idealized 3-D ocean-ice shelf model are used to assess the specific role of troughs in such cross-shelf exchanges. The talk will focus on how the trough modifies the local ocean circulation to become an effective mechanism for heat transport to ice shelves.

Pierre St-Laurent received a B.Sc. in Physics from Laval University in 2003 and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Québec in 2010. His research interests include the dispersion of river waters under ice and tidal resonance in shelf seas. He is currently a post-doctoral research assistant at CCPO, working on cross-shelf exchanges in Antarctica with J.M. Klinck and M.S. Dinniman.

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