(Table 1) Basin area, average late-summer speedup, number of sinks and runoff of West Greenland Ice Sheet catchments

• Main Authors: Palmer, Steven J, Shepherd, Andrew, Nienow, Peter, Joughin, Ian
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2011
• Subjects: Akuliaruserssuq north; Akuliaruserssuq south; Area; Avangnardleq; Event label; International Polar Year (2007-2008); Inugpait quat; IPY; Isunnguata sermia; Kautorissat isuat; Latitude of event; Longitude of event; Name; Number; Orkendalen; Percentage; Perserajut; Qigssertaq; Runoff; Russel glacier; SAT; Satellite remote sensing; West Greenland; WGreenland_AKN; WGreenland_AKS; WGreenland_AVA; WGreenland_INU; WGreenland_ISU; WGreenland_KAU; WGreenland_ORK; WGreenland_PER; WGreenland_QIG; WGreenland_RG; Greenland; Isunnguata Sermia; glacier; Ice Sheet; International Polar Year
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.817850; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.817850

We use interferometric synthetic aperture radar observations recorded in a land-terminating sector of western Greenland to characterise the ice sheet surface hydrology and to quantify spatial variations in the seasonality of ice sheet flow. Our data reveal a non-uniform pattern of late-summer ice speedup that, in places, extends over 100 km inland. We show that the degree of late-summer speedup is positively correlated with modelled runoff within the 10 glacier catchments of our survey, and that the pattern of late-summer speedup follows that of water routed at the ice sheet surface. In late-summer, ice within the largest catchment flows on average 48% faster than during winter, whereas changes in smaller catchments are less pronounced. Our observations show that the routing of seasonal runoff at the ice sheet surface plays an important role in shaping the magnitude and extent of seasonal ice sheet speedup.