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arXiv · 2608.09965

Wave-induced erosion and notch development at the Fimbul Ice Shelf front

Wenjun Lu·Lotte Wendt·Behnam Ghadimi·Shovon Jubair·Dominique Mouaze·Marianne Font·Rémi Lambert·Harvey Goodwin·Geir Moholdt·Raed Lubbad·Sveinung Løset
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Abstract

Ocean waves erode the waterline of Antarctic ice-shelf fronts and carve a thermo-erosional notch. The notch is hidden from satellites, yet it preconditions front collapse and footloose calving, so the link between notch growth and observable front retreat matters for how wave-exposed ice shelves lose mass. We study this link at the Fimbul Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, in January-February 2024. The widely used White (1980) erosion formulation is extended in two directions: a component-wise spectral treatment of irregular seas, and a breaking-aware wave profile that accounts for shoaling over the submerged ice foot revealed by remotely operated vehicle (ROV) profiling. Forced with hourly ERA5 waves, the extended model predicts about 110 m of cumulative waterline erosion over the matched 7 January-27 February window. Satellite observations show considerably more retreat: about 264 m from an S1-guided Sentinel-2 plateau-break method, and 266 m from manually digitised Sentinel-1 fronts over a slightly longer window. Under the baseline assumptions (alpha = 1, Delta T_wi = 1 degree C), the model therefore falls short of the observed retreat by a factor of about 2.4. Part of this residual may be hydrodynamic, since post-breaking turbulence is not represented; part may be mechanical, because collapse and footloose calving can convert notch erosion into larger observable retreat. Unmeasured near-ice thermal driving remains a first-order uncertainty, and front-position observations alone cannot separate these contributions.

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Wenjun Lu, Lotte Wendt, Behnam Ghadimi, Shovon Jubair, Dominique Mouaze, Marianne Font, Rémi Lambert, Harvey Goodwin, Geir Moholdt, Raed Lubbad, Sveinung Løset. 2026-07-27. Wave-induced erosion and notch development at the Fimbul Ice Shelf front. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.09965

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