Flow Characteristics, Setting, and Basal Boundary Condition of North Greenland Outlet Glaciers ...

• Main Author: Perry, Thomas
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge 2014
• Subjects: glacier; Greenland; Ice Sheet; North Greenland; Tidewater
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.25124; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/277787

Temporal variability in the partitioning of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet suggests a complex response to recent climatic change. The contribution to sea level rise from tidewater glaciers is also spatially variable across the ice sheet, and observations reveal their contrasting behaviour at a regional scale. Whilst ice-ocean interaction may explain their dynamics in the south of Greenland, the warm subtropical waters responsible for this extend only to mid-latitudes. In this study, the geometric setting and bed condition is therefore investigated to better understand the flow characteristics and dynamics of high-latitude tidewater glaciers in Greenland. New ice thickness measurements are combined with a novel mass conservation method to reconstruct high resolution (<300 m) bed topographies for 4 tidewater glaciers in northern Greenland. A 3D inversion using control methods is then applied to each glacier with the full-stokes model, Elmer/Ice, to calculate basal drag. The bed topographies reveal ...