The Potential for Basal Melting Under Summit, Greenland

• Published in: Journal of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Firestone, John, Waddington, ED., Cunningham, James
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1990
• Subjects: Earth-Surface Processes; Greenland; Journal of Glaciology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000009400; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000009400

Abstract The deep-drilling projects at the Summit ice divide will require thermal models to help interpret the paleoclimatic signals in their cores. An analytic, steady-state model predicts basal temperatures within 1 °C of the ice melting-point and basal ice no older than 100–400 kyear should melting occur. A two-dimensional, time-dependent temperature model includes the effects of realistic two-dimensional ice flow and the temperature and mass-balance patterns of the last two glacial cycles. The model relaxes some assumptions made in one-dimensional studies and produces lower basal temperatures. The basal temperatures are most sensitive to the value of the geothermal heat flux and the mass-balance pattern. If the flux is less than 56 mW m −2 , the bed has likely been frozen throughout the last glacial cycle. The decoupling of the energy and mass-conservation equations is a significant source of error which can be eliminated only by a fully coupled ice-flow/ heat-flow model.