Controls on terminus change of marine terminating glaciers in Greenland over the last 40+ years ...

• Main Authors: Goliber, Sophie Ann, 0000-0002-4750-6338
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: The University of Texas at Austin 2022
• Subjects: Glaciology; Remote sensing; Greenland; Glacier; glacier; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/44646; https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/117767

Since the 1980s, the Greenland ice sheet has been losing ice mass at an increased rate. Our current understanding of the complex physical processes that control dynamic mass loss is incomplete and, therefore, leads to a wide range of possible future contributions to sea level. Ice dynamics, or changes due to changes in ice flux, is dominated by the behavior of fast-moving outlet glaciers in Greenland. These glaciers are changing through melting of the terminus face and/or calving of icebergs; the combination of these processes and ice motion determines the position of a glacier terminus. In understanding how and why outlet glacier termini change over time compared to external forcing and internal glacier dynamics, we are able to move toward a better understanding of marine-terminating glaciers. In this dissertation, I use terminus traces to observe how and why marine-terminating glaciers change in order to better understand the mechanisms behind these complex heterogeneous changes in Greenland. I develop the ...