Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016
The Petermann ice shelf is one of the largest in Greenland, buttressing 4 % of the total ice sheet discharge, and is considered dynamically stable. In this study, we use differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry to reconstruct the grounding line migration between 1992 and 2021. Over the l...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:59f13791d3f64f54ab537ff0d7094ee9 2023-05-15T16:21:01+02:00 Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016 R. Millan J. Mouginot A. Derkacheva E. Rignot P. Milillo E. Ciraci L. Dini A. Bjørk 2022-08-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-3021-2022 https://doaj.org/article/59f13791d3f64f54ab537ff0d7094ee9 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/3021/2022/tc-16-3021-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-16-3021-2022 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/59f13791d3f64f54ab537ff0d7094ee9 The Cryosphere, Vol 16, Pp 3021-3031 (2022) Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-3021-2022 2022-12-30T23:13:21Z The Petermann ice shelf is one of the largest in Greenland, buttressing 4 % of the total ice sheet discharge, and is considered dynamically stable. In this study, we use differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry to reconstruct the grounding line migration between 1992 and 2021. Over the last 30 years, we find that the grounding line of Petermann retreated 4 km in the western and eastern sectors and 7 km in the central part. The majority of the retreat in the central sector took place between 2017 and 2021, where the glacier receded more than 5 km along a retrograde bed grounded 500 m below sea level. While the central sector stabilized on a sill, the eastern flank is sitting on top of a down-sloping bed, which might enhance the glacier retreat in the coming years. This grounding line retreat followed a speedup of the glacier by 15 % in the period 2015–2018. Along with the glacier acceleration, two large fractures formed along flow in 2015, splitting the ice shelf in three sections, with a partially decoupled flow regime. While these series of events followed the warming of the ocean waters by 0.3 ∘ C in Nares Strait, the use of a simple grounding line model suggests that enhanced submarine melting may have been responsible for the recent grounding line migration of Petermann Glacier. Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Nares strait Petermann glacier The Cryosphere Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Greenland Nares ENVELOPE(158.167,158.167,-81.450,-81.450) The Cryosphere 16 7 3021 3031 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
spellingShingle |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 R. Millan J. Mouginot A. Derkacheva E. Rignot P. Milillo E. Ciraci L. Dini A. Bjørk Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016 |
topic_facet |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
description |
The Petermann ice shelf is one of the largest in Greenland, buttressing 4 % of the total ice sheet discharge, and is considered dynamically stable. In this study, we use differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry to reconstruct the grounding line migration between 1992 and 2021. Over the last 30 years, we find that the grounding line of Petermann retreated 4 km in the western and eastern sectors and 7 km in the central part. The majority of the retreat in the central sector took place between 2017 and 2021, where the glacier receded more than 5 km along a retrograde bed grounded 500 m below sea level. While the central sector stabilized on a sill, the eastern flank is sitting on top of a down-sloping bed, which might enhance the glacier retreat in the coming years. This grounding line retreat followed a speedup of the glacier by 15 % in the period 2015–2018. Along with the glacier acceleration, two large fractures formed along flow in 2015, splitting the ice shelf in three sections, with a partially decoupled flow regime. While these series of events followed the warming of the ocean waters by 0.3 ∘ C in Nares Strait, the use of a simple grounding line model suggests that enhanced submarine melting may have been responsible for the recent grounding line migration of Petermann Glacier. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
R. Millan J. Mouginot A. Derkacheva E. Rignot P. Milillo E. Ciraci L. Dini A. Bjørk |
author_facet |
R. Millan J. Mouginot A. Derkacheva E. Rignot P. Milillo E. Ciraci L. Dini A. Bjørk |
author_sort |
R. Millan |
title |
Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016 |
title_short |
Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016 |
title_full |
Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016 |
title_fullStr |
Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the Petermann Glacier ice shelf, Greenland, after 2016 |
title_sort |
ongoing grounding line retreat and fracturing initiated at the petermann glacier ice shelf, greenland, after 2016 |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-3021-2022 https://doaj.org/article/59f13791d3f64f54ab537ff0d7094ee9 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(158.167,158.167,-81.450,-81.450) |
geographic |
Greenland Nares |
geographic_facet |
Greenland Nares |
genre |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Nares strait Petermann glacier The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Nares strait Petermann glacier The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 16, Pp 3021-3031 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/3021/2022/tc-16-3021-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-16-3021-2022 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/59f13791d3f64f54ab537ff0d7094ee9 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-3021-2022 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
3021 |
op_container_end_page |
3031 |
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1766009035363975168 |