Atmospheric drivers of melt-related ice speed-up events on the Russell Glacier in southwest Greenland ...

• Main Authors: Schmid, Timo, Radić, Valentina, Tedstone, Andrew, Lea, James M., Brough, Stephen, Hermann, Mauro
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2023
• Subjects: glacier; Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000640105; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/640105

The Greenland Ice Sheet is a major contributor to current and projected sea level rise in the warming climate. However, uncertainties in Greenland's contribution to future sea level rise remain, partly due to challenges in constraining the role of ice dynamics. Transient ice accelerations, or ice speed-up events, lasting from 1 d to 1 week, have the potential to indirectly affect the mass budget of the ice sheet. They are triggered by an overload of the subglacial drainage system due to an increase in water supply. In this study, we identify melt-induced ice speed-up events at the Russell Glacier, southwest Greenland, in order to analyse synoptic patterns driving these events. The short-term speed-up events are identified from daily ice velocity time series collected from six GPS stations along the glacier for each summer (May-October) from 2009 to 2012. In total, 45 ice speed-up events are identified, of which we focus on the 36 melt-induced events, where melt is derived from two in situ observational ... : The Cryosphere, 17 (9) ...