| Summary: | Continuous GPS measurements on three broad and gently sloping temperate ice-cap outlets in southern and western Vatnajökull, southeast Iceland, and in northern Hofsjökull, central Iceland, are the subject of this thesis. The measurements show events of increased ice velocity and how jökulhlaups (glacial outburst floods) affect glacier motion. Interpretation of these events, with the aid of other available hydrological and glaciological data, such as discharge time series from proglacial rivers and runoff modelling calibrated with mass balance measurements, sheds light on the time-dependent development of the subglacial hydraulic system of the ice cap outlets, and its interaction with ice motion. Motion events unrelated to jökulhlaups are observed: (i) during the early melt season, (ii) contemporaneous with events of increased surface melt or rain, and (iii) during the emptying of supraglacial slush ponds. Events of slower movement than late winter velocities are also observed, prior to early-melt-season motion events and in the wake of motion events during the height of the melt season. We interpret these events, with the aid of runoff modelling on the glacier and estimates of longitudinal stress-gradient coupling lengths, as being induced by hydrological forcing on basal slip. Lack of response in movement to certain runoff pulses and the characteristics of the diurnal variation in measured proglacial discharge indicate the development in the ablation zone of a fast, efficient subglacial hydraulic system early in the summer. The passing of a jökulhlaup and high subglacial groundwater flow do not disturb this development. Three GPS campaigns to measure jökulhlaups have been carried out over known jökulhlaup paths in two outlets from Vatnajökull ice cap, Skaftárjökull and Skeiðarárjökull. Two slowly rising jökulhlaups from Grímsvötn and two rapidly rising jökulhlaups from the western and eastern Skaftá cauldrons were captured in these campaigns, with maximum discharge ranging from 240 to 3300m3 s-1. Glacier ...
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