The Amundsen Sea has the highest thinning rates of ice shelves in Antarctica. This imbalance is caused by changes in ocean melting induced by warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) intrusions. The resulting changing freshwater balance could affect the on‐shelf currents and mixing. However, a clear understanding of the sources and sinks of freshwater in the region is lacking. Here we use a model of the Amundsen Sea, with passive freshwater tracers, to investigate the relative magnitudes and spatial distributions of the different freshwater components. In the surface layer and as a depth average, all freshwater tracer concentrations are of comparable magnitude, though on a depth average, sea ice and ice shelf are largest. The total freshwater tracer distribution is similar to that of the ice‐shelf tracer field. This implies a potential for ice‐shelf meltwater feedbacks, whereby abundant ice‐shelf meltwater alters the ocean circulation and stratification, affecting melting. Ice‐shelf and sea‐ice freshwater fluxes have the largest interannual variability. The effect of including grounded icebergs and iceberg freshwater flux are studied in detail. The presence of icebergs increases CDW intrusions that reach the base of ice shelves. This suggests another possible feedback mechanism, whereby more icebergs induce greater ice‐shelf melting and hence more icebergs. However, the strength of this potential feedback is dependent on poorly constrained sea‐ice model parameters. These results imply that poorly constrained parameters relating to the ocean freshwater balance, such as those relating to icebergs and sea ice, impact predictions for melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

中文翻译：

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阿蒙森海淡水平衡对南极西部冰盖融化的影响

在南极，阿蒙森海的冰架稀疏率最高。这种不平衡是由于温暖的环极深水（CDW）入侵引起的海洋融化变化引起的。由此产生的淡水平衡变化可能会影响架上电流和混合。但是，对该区域的淡水源和汇缺乏清晰的了解。在这里，我们使用带有被动淡水示踪剂的阿蒙森海模型来研究不同淡水成分的相对大小和空间分布。在表层并且作为深度平均值，所有淡水示踪剂的浓度都具有可比的幅度，尽管在深度平均值上，海冰和冰架最大。淡水示踪剂的总分布与冰架示踪剂场的分布相似。这意味着可能会有冰架融化水的反馈，从而大量的冰架融化水会改变海洋环流和分层，影响融化。冰架和海冰淡水通量的年际变化最大。详细研究了接地冰山和冰山淡水通量的影响。冰山的存在增加了到达冰架底部的CDW侵入。这表明了另一种可能的反馈机制，即更多的冰山引起更大的冰架融化，从而导致更多的冰山。但是，这种潜在反馈的强度取决于约束较弱的海冰模型参数。这些结果表明，与海洋淡水平衡相关的参数（例如与冰山和海冰相关的参数）受约束的程度较弱，