Abstract:
These are MITgcm ocean model outputs under Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf. The simulations were designed to investigate the relative role of ocean conditions and ice shelf geometric changes between 2011 and 2021. Each set of runs contains one run for each year. BOTH-2011 to BOTH-2021 contain annual runs using the ocean and geometry from the corresponding year, OCEAN-2011 to OCEAN-2021 contain annual runs using the annual ocean conditions and 2012 ice shelf geometry and GEOM-2011 to GEOM-2021 contain annual runs using the 2012 ocean conditions and the annual ice shelf geometry. The ice shelf geometries used are derived from CryoSat-2 Digital Elevation Models (Lowery et al., 2025) and converted to ice shelf draft by assuming the ice is in hydrostatic equilibrium. The ocean boundary conditions are from observations from two moorings in Pine Island Bay. The output data contain fields of potential temperature, salinity, velocity and 2D variables from the boundary layer such as freshwater flux, thermal driving and sub-ice shelf velocity.
The work took place as part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Satellite Data in Environmental Science (SENSE) Centre for Doctoral Training (grant no. NE/T00939X/1).
Keywords:
Ice shelves , Ice-ocean interactions, Ocean modelling
Lowery, K., Holland, P., Dutrieux, P., Hogg, A., & Gourmelen, N. (2025). MITgcm Model Outputs for the ocean in Pine Island Bay between 2011 and 2021 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/cbc6eb20-de95-457d-9000-c78b0ae9ee51
| Access Constraints: | Data under embargo until the publication of the associated paper |
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| Use Constraints: | Data supplied under Open Government Licence v3.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. |
| Creation Date: | 2025-11-26 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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| Personnel: | |
| Name | UK Polar Data Centre |
| Role(s) | Metadata Author |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Katie Lowery |
| Role(s) | Investigator, Technical Contact |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Paul R Holland |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Pierre Dutrieux |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Anna E Hogg |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Name | Noel Gourmelen |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Parent Dataset: | N/A |
| Reference: | References: Kate Lowery (2026)*** in prep *** Lowery, K., Dutrieux, P., Holland, P. R., Hogg, A. E., Gourmelen, N., and Wallis, B. J.: Spatio-temporal melt and basal channel evolution on Pine Island Glacier ice shelf from CryoSat-2, The Cryosphere, 19, 4893-4911, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4893-2025, 2025 Pierre Dutrieux et al. Strong Sensitivity of Pine Island Ice-Shelf Melting to Climatic Variability.Science343,174-178(2014).DOI:10.1126/science.1244341 Related dataset: Holland, P.R., Bevan, S.L., & Luckman, A.J. (2023). Output from model simulations of the ocean beneath Thwaites Glacier, VERSION 2 [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/473eb97c-63a8-4002-8b72-e7f07b2ab228 Code available at: Lowery, K., Holland, P., & Dutrieux, P. (2025). Model setup for simulations of melting beneath Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17206842 |
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| Quality: | The results of the model were compared with satellite-basal melt rate. Full description of the comparison can be found in Lowery et al (2026) | |
| Lineage/Methodology: | This is output from the MITgcm ocean model, code checkpoint c68i. The simulations were run on the ARCHER2 super-computing cluster. The model used bathymetry from BedMachine v3, with amendments based on observations from Dutrieux et al. (2014). Any masked values represent seabed or ice. The full model setup can be found here: Lowery, K., Holland, P., & Dutrieux, P. (2025). Model setup for simulations of melting beneath Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17206842 Each runs from the three different configurations (BOTH, OCEAN and GEOM) consists of five files: - potentialTemperature.nc: contains the potential temperature output of the model. Variables are: *theta: sea water potential temperature in Celsius *time: time in seconds *x: projection x coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *y: projection y coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *z: depth in meters - salinity.nc: contains the sea water salinity output of the model. Variables are: *salt: sea water salinity in psu *time: time in seconds *x: projection x coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *y: projection y coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *z: depth in meters - twoDvariables.nc: contains the 2D variables that are at the interface between the ice and the ocean. The variables are: *freshwaterFlux: ice shelf freshwater flux in kg m2 s-1 *thermalDriving: subice temperature above freezing in degrees Celsius *time: time in seconds *uVelBoundaryLayer: subice ocean velocity in the x direction in m/s *vVelBoundaryLayer: subice ocean velocity in the y direction in m/s *x: projection x coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *y: projection y coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters - uVelocity.nc: contains the x component of the ocean velocity. Variables are: *uVel: ocean velocity in x direction in m/s *time: time in seconds *x: projection x coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *y: projection y coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *z: depth in meters - vVelocity.nc: contains the y component of the ocean velocity. Variables are: *vVel: ocean velocity in y direction in m/s *time: time in seconds *x: projection x coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *y: projection y coordinate in the local model coordinate system in meters *z: depth in meters For conversion, the grid.csv needs to be used for conversion in latitude/longitude |
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| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2011-01-01 |
| End Date | 2021-12-31 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -76 |
| Northernmost | -74 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -104 |
| Easternmost | -98 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Data Resolution: | |
| Latitude Resolution | 200 metres |
| Longitude Resolution | 200 metres |
| Horizontal Resolution Range | 100 meters - < 250 meters |
| Vertical Resolution | 10 metres |
| Vertical Resolution Range | 10 meters - < 30 meters |
| Temporal Resolution | N/A |
| Temporal Resolution Range | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Antarctica |
| Detailed Location | Pine Island Glacier, Amundsen Sea |
| Data Collection: | MITgcm ocean model, code checkpoint c68i. Full code available on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17206842 |
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| Distribution: | |
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| Distribution Media | Online Internet (HTTP) |
| Distribution Size | 171.6 GB |
| Distribution Format | netCDF |
| Fees | N/A |
| Data Storage: | This dataset contains 165 netCDF files under 33 folders for a total of 171.5 GB. Each file is saved under a folder giving the model configuration (BOTH, GEOM, OCEAN) and the year (2011 to 2021). A grid.csv file provides the conversion from the local coordinate system to latitude/longitude. |