Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets
Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine-type ice sheets are investigated numerically. Buttressing effects are analysed for a situation where a stable grounding line is located on a bed sloping upwards in the direction of flow. Such grounding-line positions are known to be unconditionally u...
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2018
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-647-2013 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/7/647/2013/ |
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tc16627 2023-05-15T16:41:46+02:00 Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets Gudmundsson, G. H. 2018-09-27 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-647-2013 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/7/647/2013/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-7-647-2013 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/7/647/2013/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2018 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-647-2013 2020-07-20T16:25:31Z Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine-type ice sheets are investigated numerically. Buttressing effects are analysed for a situation where a stable grounding line is located on a bed sloping upwards in the direction of flow. Such grounding-line positions are known to be unconditionally unstable in the absence of transverse flow variations. It is shown that ice-shelf buttressing can restore stability under these conditions. Ice flux at the grounding line is, in general, not a monotonically increasing function of ice thickness. This, possibly at first somewhat counterintuitive result, is found to be fully consistent with recent theoretical work. Grounding lines on retrograde slopes are conditionally stable, and the stability regime is a non-trivial function of bed and ice-shelf geometry. The stability of grounding lines cannot be assessed from considerations of local bed slope only. Text Ice Shelf Copernicus Publications: E-Journals The Cryosphere 7 2 647 655 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
op_collection_id |
ftcopernicus |
language |
English |
description |
Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine-type ice sheets are investigated numerically. Buttressing effects are analysed for a situation where a stable grounding line is located on a bed sloping upwards in the direction of flow. Such grounding-line positions are known to be unconditionally unstable in the absence of transverse flow variations. It is shown that ice-shelf buttressing can restore stability under these conditions. Ice flux at the grounding line is, in general, not a monotonically increasing function of ice thickness. This, possibly at first somewhat counterintuitive result, is found to be fully consistent with recent theoretical work. Grounding lines on retrograde slopes are conditionally stable, and the stability regime is a non-trivial function of bed and ice-shelf geometry. The stability of grounding lines cannot be assessed from considerations of local bed slope only. |
format |
Text |
author |
Gudmundsson, G. H. |
spellingShingle |
Gudmundsson, G. H. Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets |
author_facet |
Gudmundsson, G. H. |
author_sort |
Gudmundsson, G. H. |
title |
Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets |
title_short |
Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets |
title_full |
Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets |
title_fullStr |
Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets |
title_sort |
ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-647-2013 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/7/647/2013/ |
genre |
Ice Shelf |
genre_facet |
Ice Shelf |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-7-647-2013 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/7/647/2013/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-647-2013 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
7 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
647 |
op_container_end_page |
655 |
_version_ |
1766032234615144448 |