Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland.
Marine-terminating glaciers control most of Greenland's ice discharge into the ocean, but little is known about the geometry of their frontal regions. Here we use side-looking, multibeam echo sounding observations to reveal that their frontal ice cliffs are grounded deeper below sea level than...
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2015
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Online Access: | https://escholarship.org/uc/item/28j711jc |
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org/ark:/13030/qt28j711jc 2023-05-15T16:21:02+02:00 Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland. Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian Xu, Yun Cai, Cilan Kemp, Chris 5909 - 5917 2015-07-27 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/28j711jc unknown eScholarship, University of California qt28j711jc https://escholarship.org/uc/item/28j711jc CC-BY CC-BY Geophysical research letters, vol 42, iss 14 Glaciology Greenland bathymetry ice‐ocean interactions multibeam echo sounding physical oceanography ice-ocean interactions Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences article 2015 ftcdlib 2020-06-06T07:55:28Z Marine-terminating glaciers control most of Greenland's ice discharge into the ocean, but little is known about the geometry of their frontal regions. Here we use side-looking, multibeam echo sounding observations to reveal that their frontal ice cliffs are grounded deeper below sea level than previously measured and their ice faces are neither vertical nor smooth but often undercut by the ocean and rough. Deep glacier grounding enables contact with subsurface, warm, salty Atlantic waters (AW) which melts ice at rates of meters per day. We detect cavities undercutting the base of the calving faces at the sites of subglacial water (SGW) discharge predicted by a hydrological model. The observed pattern of undercutting is consistent with numerical simulations of ice melt in which buoyant plumes of SGW transport warm AW to the ice faces. Glacier undercutting likely enhances iceberg calving, impacting ice front stability and, in turn, the glacier mass balance. Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Greenland University of California: eScholarship Greenland |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
ftcdlib |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Glaciology Greenland bathymetry ice‐ocean interactions multibeam echo sounding physical oceanography ice-ocean interactions Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Glaciology Greenland bathymetry ice‐ocean interactions multibeam echo sounding physical oceanography ice-ocean interactions Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian Xu, Yun Cai, Cilan Kemp, Chris Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland. |
topic_facet |
Glaciology Greenland bathymetry ice‐ocean interactions multibeam echo sounding physical oceanography ice-ocean interactions Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
description |
Marine-terminating glaciers control most of Greenland's ice discharge into the ocean, but little is known about the geometry of their frontal regions. Here we use side-looking, multibeam echo sounding observations to reveal that their frontal ice cliffs are grounded deeper below sea level than previously measured and their ice faces are neither vertical nor smooth but often undercut by the ocean and rough. Deep glacier grounding enables contact with subsurface, warm, salty Atlantic waters (AW) which melts ice at rates of meters per day. We detect cavities undercutting the base of the calving faces at the sites of subglacial water (SGW) discharge predicted by a hydrological model. The observed pattern of undercutting is consistent with numerical simulations of ice melt in which buoyant plumes of SGW transport warm AW to the ice faces. Glacier undercutting likely enhances iceberg calving, impacting ice front stability and, in turn, the glacier mass balance. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian Xu, Yun Cai, Cilan Kemp, Chris |
author_facet |
Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian Xu, Yun Cai, Cilan Kemp, Chris |
author_sort |
Rignot, Eric |
title |
Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland. |
title_short |
Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland. |
title_full |
Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland. |
title_fullStr |
Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in West Greenland. |
title_sort |
undercutting of marine-terminating glaciers in west greenland. |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/28j711jc |
op_coverage |
5909 - 5917 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
glacier Greenland |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland |
op_source |
Geophysical research letters, vol 42, iss 14 |
op_relation |
qt28j711jc https://escholarship.org/uc/item/28j711jc |
op_rights |
CC-BY |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
_version_ |
1766009058814328832 |