Summary
Vincennes Bay is a region of East Antarctica vulnerable to sub-ice shelf basal melting from warm ocean water intrusions. The sub-ice shelf bathymetry in this region is largely unknown, despite its importance for ocean dynamics within ice shelf cavities and associated sub-ice shelf basal melting. Here, we present an open-source approach to deriving open ocean and sub-ice shelf bathymetry from airborne gravity data using the Tomofast-x inversion platform. Using existing datasets of bed topography, bathymetry, ice geometry, instrumented seal dives, and airborne gravity data, we perform a constrained gravity inversion to generate a new bathymetry for Vincennes Bay. Our new bathymetry reveals large-scale bathymetric features that are currently not resolved in existing regional bathymetry datasets, including the deep marine trough recently mapped offshore the Vanderford Glacier, and a smaller bathymetric trough offshore the Adams Glacier, which reaches depths of more than 1500 m. Ocean modelling using the new bathymetry simulates a 28 % increase in sub-ice shelf melt rates compared with estimates generated using existing regional bathymetry datasets, highlighting the importance of more accurate bathymetry estimates in this region.
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