A 3D glacier dynamics-line plume model to estimate the frontal ablation of Hansbreen, Svalbard

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Muñoz-Hermosilla, José M., Otero, Jaime, Andrés Marruedo, Eva de, Shahateet, Kaian, Navarro, Francisco
• Other Authors: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España), European Commission, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: European Geosciences Union 2024
• Subjects: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; Hansbreen; Hermosilla; Hornsund; Muñoz; Svalbard; glacier; The Cryosphere; Tidewater; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/356919; https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1911-2024

14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table.-- Data availability: The data that support the results of this study and form the basis for all the figures presented in this paper are openly available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8005258 (Muñoz-Hermosilla, 2023) Frontal ablation is responsible for a large fraction of the mass loss from tidewater glaciers. The main contributors to frontal ablation are iceberg calving and submarine melting, with calving often being the largest. However, submarine melting, in addition to its direct contribution to mass loss, also promotes calving through the changes induced in the stress field at the glacier terminus, so both processes should be jointly analysed. Among the factors influencing submarine melting, the formation of a buoyant plume due to the emergence of fresh subglacial water at the glacier grounding line plays a key role. In this study we used Elmer/Ice to develop a 3D glacier dynamics model including calving and subglacial hydrology coupled with a line plume model to calculate the calving front position at every time step. We applied this model to the Hansbreen–Hansbukta glacier–fjord system in southern Spitsbergen, Svalbard, where a large set of data are available for both the glacier and the fjord from September 2008 to March 2011. We found that our 3D model reproduced the expected seasonal cycle of advance–retreat. Besides, the modelled front positions were in good agreement with the observed front positions at the central part of the calving front, with longitudinal differences, on average, below 15 m for the period from December 2009 to March 2011. But there were regions of the front, especially the eastern margin, that presented major differences This research was carried out under project PID2020-113051RB-C31, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ FEDER, UE, and grant PRE2018-084318, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the FSE “El FSE invierte en tu futuro”. Field measurements in Hornsund were supported by the Polish–Norwegian project AWAKE-2 ...