Thinning leads to calving-style changes at Bowdoin Glacier, Greenland ...
Ice mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet is the largest single contributor to sea level rise in the 21st century. The mass loss rate has accelerated in recent decades mainly due to thinning and retreat of its outlet glaciers. The diverse calving mechanisms responsible for tidewater glacier retreat...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
ETH Zurich
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000470651 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/470651 |
| Summary: | Ice mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet is the largest single contributor to sea level rise in the 21st century. The mass loss rate has accelerated in recent decades mainly due to thinning and retreat of its outlet glaciers. The diverse calving mechanisms responsible for tidewater glacier retreat are not fully understood yet. Since a tidewater glacier’s sensitivity to external forcings depends on its calving style, detailed insight into calving processes is necessary to improve projections of ice sheet mass loss by calving. As tidewater glaciers are mostly thinning, their calving styles are expected to change. Here, we study calving behaviour changes under a thinning regime at Bowdoin Glacier, north-western Greenland, by combining field and remote-sensing data from 2015 to 2019. Previous studies showed that major calving events in 2015 and 2017 were driven by hydro-fracturing and melt-undercutting. New observations from uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery and a GPS network installed at the calving front ... : The Cryosphere, 15 (2) ... |
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