Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections
ABSTRACT Surface mass balance (SMB) is the net input of mass on a glacier's upper surface, composed of snow deposition, melt and erosion processes, and is a major contributor to the overall mass balance. Pine Island Glacier (PIG) in West Antarctica has been dynamically imbalanced since the earl...
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crcambridgeupr:10.1017/jog.2019.36 2024-03-03T08:37:43+00:00 Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections KONRAD, HANNES HOGG, ANNA E. MULVANEY, ROBERT ARTHERN, ROBERT TUCKWELL, REBECCA J. MEDLEY, BROOKE SHEPHERD, ANDREW 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jog.2019.36 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143019000364 en eng Cambridge University Press (CUP) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Journal of Glaciology volume 65, issue 252, page 595-604 ISSN 0022-1430 1727-5652 Earth-Surface Processes journal-article 2019 crcambridgeupr https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2019.36 2024-02-08T08:29:57Z ABSTRACT Surface mass balance (SMB) is the net input of mass on a glacier's upper surface, composed of snow deposition, melt and erosion processes, and is a major contributor to the overall mass balance. Pine Island Glacier (PIG) in West Antarctica has been dynamically imbalanced since the early 1990s, indicating that discharge of solid ice into the oceans exceeds snow deposition. However, observations of the SMB pattern on the fast flowing regions are scarce, and are potentially affected by the firn's strain history. Here, we present new observations from radar-derived stratigraphy and a relatively dense network of firn cores, collected along a ~900 km traverse of PIG. Between 1986 and 2014, the SMB along the traverse was 0.505 m w.e. a −1 on average with a gradient of higher snow deposition in the South-West compared with the North-East of the catchment. We show that along ~80% of the traverse the strain history amounts to a misestimation of SMB below the nominal uncertainty, but can exceed it by a factor 5 in places, making it a significant correction to the SMB estimate locally. We find that the strain correction changes the basin-wide SMB by ~0.7 Gt a −1 and thus forms a negligible (1%) correction to the glacier's total SMB. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctica Journal of Glaciology Pine Island Pine Island Glacier West Antarctica Cambridge University Press West Antarctica Pine Island Glacier ENVELOPE(-101.000,-101.000,-75.000,-75.000) Journal of Glaciology 65 252 595 604 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Cambridge University Press |
op_collection_id |
crcambridgeupr |
language |
English |
topic |
Earth-Surface Processes |
spellingShingle |
Earth-Surface Processes KONRAD, HANNES HOGG, ANNA E. MULVANEY, ROBERT ARTHERN, ROBERT TUCKWELL, REBECCA J. MEDLEY, BROOKE SHEPHERD, ANDREW Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections |
topic_facet |
Earth-Surface Processes |
description |
ABSTRACT Surface mass balance (SMB) is the net input of mass on a glacier's upper surface, composed of snow deposition, melt and erosion processes, and is a major contributor to the overall mass balance. Pine Island Glacier (PIG) in West Antarctica has been dynamically imbalanced since the early 1990s, indicating that discharge of solid ice into the oceans exceeds snow deposition. However, observations of the SMB pattern on the fast flowing regions are scarce, and are potentially affected by the firn's strain history. Here, we present new observations from radar-derived stratigraphy and a relatively dense network of firn cores, collected along a ~900 km traverse of PIG. Between 1986 and 2014, the SMB along the traverse was 0.505 m w.e. a −1 on average with a gradient of higher snow deposition in the South-West compared with the North-East of the catchment. We show that along ~80% of the traverse the strain history amounts to a misestimation of SMB below the nominal uncertainty, but can exceed it by a factor 5 in places, making it a significant correction to the SMB estimate locally. We find that the strain correction changes the basin-wide SMB by ~0.7 Gt a −1 and thus forms a negligible (1%) correction to the glacier's total SMB. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
KONRAD, HANNES HOGG, ANNA E. MULVANEY, ROBERT ARTHERN, ROBERT TUCKWELL, REBECCA J. MEDLEY, BROOKE SHEPHERD, ANDREW |
author_facet |
KONRAD, HANNES HOGG, ANNA E. MULVANEY, ROBERT ARTHERN, ROBERT TUCKWELL, REBECCA J. MEDLEY, BROOKE SHEPHERD, ANDREW |
author_sort |
KONRAD, HANNES |
title |
Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections |
title_short |
Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections |
title_full |
Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections |
title_fullStr |
Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections |
title_full_unstemmed |
Observations of surface mass balance on Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections |
title_sort |
observations of surface mass balance on pine island glacier, west antarctica, and the effect of strain history in fast-flowing sections |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jog.2019.36 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143019000364 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-101.000,-101.000,-75.000,-75.000) |
geographic |
West Antarctica Pine Island Glacier |
geographic_facet |
West Antarctica Pine Island Glacier |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica Journal of Glaciology Pine Island Pine Island Glacier West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica Journal of Glaciology Pine Island Pine Island Glacier West Antarctica |
op_source |
Journal of Glaciology volume 65, issue 252, page 595-604 ISSN 0022-1430 1727-5652 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2019.36 |
container_title |
Journal of Glaciology |
container_volume |
65 |
container_issue |
252 |
container_start_page |
595 |
op_container_end_page |
604 |
_version_ |
1792500959820120064 |