Advances in data availability to constrain and evaluate frontal ablation of ice-dynamical models of Greenland's tidewater peripheral glaciers

• Published in: Annals of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Beatriz Recinos, Fabien Maussion, Ben Marzeion
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press 2022
• Subjects: Arctic glaciology; calving; glacier discharge; glacier modeling; ice/ocean interactions; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Arctic; Annals of Glaciology; Ice Sheet; Tidewater
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.11; https://doaj.org/article/62ba7fbdb5be4a409b24128506425b40

We revise and evaluate frontal ablation fluxes obtained by the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM) for Greenland's tidewater peripheral glaciers de-coupled from the ice sheet. By making use of new region-wide ice thickness and solid ice discharge data, we re-evaluate model performance and suggest future research directions to improve the ice thickness estimation of glacier models. OGGM is unable to predict individual tidewater glacier dynamics well if it has to rely only on surface mass balance estimates and the assumption of a closed budget to constrain the calving parameterization. Velocity observations are essential to constrain the model and estimate the dynamic mass loss of Greenland's tidewater peripheral glaciers.