December 2011

In a short News & Views article in Nature, Levermann reviews the potential for tsunami-genic iceberg calving as a phenomenon and a possible hazard. PISM-PIK Antarctic ice sheet simulations gave the frequency distribution of iceberg height and energy in discharge events per decade; see box. Iceberg discharge was computed from the vertical extent of the ice sheet and the marginal velocity distribution in a present-day equilibrium state. The results show a peak in the abundance of icebergs with a height of around 400 metres, and a distribution of energies up to several kilotonnes of TNT.