This dataset provides spatially and temporally standardized freshwater fluxes from ice shelves around Antarctica, as well as ice-shelf integrated estimates. It is based on state-of-the-art and open-source datasets (Paolo et al., 2023; Greene et al., 2022; Mouginot et al., 2017; Morlighem et al., 2019) and contains the following data files:

1- iceshelf_calving_fluxes.gpkg

2- Merged_Integrated_melt_rates.csv

3- Merged_Integrated_melt_err_rates.csv

4- calving_bmachine_grid_v1.nc

5- bmelt_bmachine_grid_v1.nc

You can find below a brief description of this dataset (more information on the calculation can be found in the README file).

1) "iceshelf_calving_fluxes.gpkg" is a geopackage file that can be read inside QGIS. It contains the delimitation of ice shelves, based on the grounding line, ice front delineation, and naming convention from Mouginot et al, 2017. The dataset contains the following columns:

- fid: ice shelf id

- ice_shelf_name : ice_shelf_name based on the naming convention from Mouginot et al., 2017

- latitude : latitude of the ice shelf

- longitude : longitude of the ice shelf

- mass_change_YY : ice shelf calving rate in Gt/yr.

- mass_change_YY_err : error on ice shelf calving rate in Gt/yr.

2) "Merged_Integrated_melt_rates.csv" contains the following variable

- Column 1: ice shelf names based on the same convention as calving (see previous paragraph)

- Column 2-26: integrated basal melting rates in Gt/yr water equivalent, for years 1992 and 1994-2017 based on the dataset of Paolo et al., 2023.

3) "Merged_Integrated_melt_err_rates.csv" contains the following variable

- Column 1: ice shelf names based on the same convention as calving (see previous paragraph)

- Column 2-26: integrated error on basal melting rates in Gt/yr water equivalent, for years 1992 and 1994-2017, based on the dataset of Paolo et al., 2023.

4) "calving_bmachine_grid_v1.nc" is a netCDF that contains spatially distributed maps of calving rates in Gt/yr and related errors (Greene et al., 2022) along with ice shelf thicknesses (Paolo et al., 2023) for overlapping years, based on the flux calculation at the ice shelf front (using the mask from "iceshelf_calving_fluxes.gpkg"). The projection is polar stereographic (EPSG:3031), and the pixel size is 500 m. The extent of the layers is the same as BedMachine v3.

5) "bmelt_bmachine_grid_v1.nc" is a netCDF that contains spatially distributed maps of yearly basal melting rates in meters/year and related errors, based on the work of Paolo et al., 2023. The maps of basal melting have also been reprojected into the BedMachine grid (same as calving rates), which is in polar stereographic projection (EPSG:3031) with a pixel size of 500 m.

References

Mouginot, J., B. Scheuchl, and E. Rignot. (2017). MEaSUREs Antarctic Boundaries for IPY 2007-2009 from Satellite Radar, Version 2 [Data Set]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/AXE4121732AD. Date Accessed 07-25-2023.

Greene, C. A., Gardner, A. S., Schlegel, N.-J., & Fraser, A. D. (2022). Antarctic calving loss rivals ice-shelf thinning. Nature, 609(7929), 948–953. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05037-w

Paolo, F. S., Gardner, A. S., Greene, C. A., Nilsson, J., Schodlok, M. P., Schlegel, N.-J., and Fricker, H. A.: Widespread slowdown in thinning rates of West Antarctic ice shelves, The Cryosphere, 17, 3409–3433, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-3409-2023, 2023.

Morlighem, M., Rignot, E., Binder, T., Blankenship, D., Drews, R., Eagles, G., et al. (2019). Deep glacial troughs and stabilizing ridges unveiled beneath the margins of the Antarctic ice sheet. Nature Geoscience, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0510-8