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iii Mendenhall Glacier is a lake-calving glacier in southeastern Alaska that is experiencing substantial thinning and increasingly rapid recession. Long-term mass wastage linked to climatic trends is responsible for thinning of the lower glacier and leaving the terminus vulnerable to buoyancy-driven...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2006
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.556.9501 http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/glaciers/theses/boyce_ms.pdf |
| Summary: | iii Mendenhall Glacier is a lake-calving glacier in southeastern Alaska that is experiencing substantial thinning and increasingly rapid recession. Long-term mass wastage linked to climatic trends is responsible for thinning of the lower glacier and leaving the terminus vulnerable to buoyancy-driven calving and accelerated retreat. Bedrock topography may play a role in stabilizing the terminus between periods of rapid calving and retreat. Lake-terminating glaciers form a population distinct from both tidewater glaciers and polar ice tongues, with some similarities to both groups. Lacustrine termini experience fewer per-turbations (e.g. tidal flexure, high subaqueous melt rates) and are therefore inherently more stable than tidewater termini. At Mendenhall, rapid thinning and simultaneous retreat into a deeper basin led to floatation conditions along approximately 50 % of the calving front. This unstable terminus geometry lasted for ∼ 2 years and culminated in large-scale calving and terminus collapse during summer 2004. We used a 1-dimensional viscoelastic model to investigate the transient response of a floating glacier tongue to buoy- |
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