Germany_22/23_V2_WAIS-Bell

Summary: Depart Cape Town, return Punta Arenas for research in Western Bellinghousen and eastern Amundsen Sea sectors of West Antarctica. Two helicopters onboard. Daily weather balloons. Call Neumayer Station III for New Year.

PS134; Project: WAIS-BELL (GPF 20-1_028)

Goals: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet (APIS) are likely subject to highly dynamic activities during periods of climate warming as most of the WAIS base is grounded below present sea-level and most of the APIS is exposed to surface warming. Knowing their contribution to sea-level during times when climate conditions were similar as expected of a future warming Earth, requires reconstruction of their glacial advance and retreat cycles in relationship to bathymetric, topographic and oceanographic conditions. We propose ship-time to decipher the palaeo-environmental processes of the southern Bellingshausen Sea and easternmost Amundsen Sea as this region exhibits some of the most dramatic ice mass loss developments in modern times. We hypothesize that this sector has always been the most vulnerable location in Antarctica for early ice sheet retreat in most deglaciation periods. Data produced by using seismic reflection and deep crustal refraction profiling, geothermal heat flow measurements, helicopter-magnetic surveying and swath-bathymetric profiling will be used to identify branches of the West Antarctic Rift System and study transport-deposition-erosion processes of glacially derived shelf sediments and the structural properties of sediments drifts on the continental rise. The expedition will contribute to research objectives and challenges of Topic 2 “Ocean and Cryosphere in Climate” and its Subtopics “Warming Climates” and “Sea Level Change” in the new POF-IV program, and will enhance national and international cooperation with universities.