Brief communication: The Impact of Interannual Melt Supply Variability on Greenland Ice Sheet Moulin Inputs

The supraglacial drainage system of the Greenland Ice Sheet, in combination with surface melt rate, controls the rate of water flow into moulins, driving subglacial water pressure. We apply a physically-based surface meltwater flow model to a ∼20 × 27 km 2 catchment on the southwestern Greenland Ice...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hill, Tim, Dow, Christine F.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2022-180
https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-180/
Description
Summary:The supraglacial drainage system of the Greenland Ice Sheet, in combination with surface melt rate, controls the rate of water flow into moulins, driving subglacial water pressure. We apply a physically-based surface meltwater flow model to a ∼20 × 27 km 2 catchment on the southwestern Greenland Ice Sheet in high and low melt years to examine the impact of surface melt rate and variability on moulin inputs. The model outputs predict important differences in moulin inputs between high and low melt years. These dynamic model outputs will be important in driving future process-scale subglacial hydrology models.