Measuring ocean-ice interactions from space

The European Space Agency (ESA) Southern Ocean-Ice Shelf Interactions (SO-ICE) project is a collaborative research project bringing together the ESA Polar+ Ice Shelves and 4D Antarctica projects, and the European Commission Southern Ocean Carbon and Heat Impact on Climate (SO-CHIC) project, in order to improve understanding of the processes controlling ice-ocean interactions in Antarctica.

This project will use state-of-the-art Earth Observation techniques to measure the flow and thickness of ice shelves in the Weddell Sea region of Antarctica. Observations and modelling of ocean circulation will then be used investigate how the ocean is both driving and responding to these ice shelf changes.

By bringing together these ocean and ice systems, this project will lead to substantial improvements in our understanding of ice shelf-ocean interactions across a range of spatial and temporal scales, which is critical to understanding and predicting the response of the ice sheet to a changing climate.