Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature
Rates of ice mass loss at the calving margins of tidewater glaciers (frontal ablation rates) are a key uncertainty in sea level rise projections. Measurements are difficult because mass lost is replaced by ice flow at variable rates, and frontal ablation incorporates sub-aerial calving, and submarin...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4633826 2023-05-15T16:22:13+02:00 Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature Luckman, Adrian Benn, Douglas I. Cottier, Finlo Bevan, Suzanne Nilsen, Frank Inall, Mark 2015-10-09 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633826/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26450063 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566 en eng Nature Pub. Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633826/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26450063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566 Copyright © 2015, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566 2015-11-29T01:24:00Z Rates of ice mass loss at the calving margins of tidewater glaciers (frontal ablation rates) are a key uncertainty in sea level rise projections. Measurements are difficult because mass lost is replaced by ice flow at variable rates, and frontal ablation incorporates sub-aerial calving, and submarine melt and calving. Here we derive frontal ablation rates for three dynamically contrasting glaciers in Svalbard from an unusually dense series of satellite images. We combine ocean data, ice-front position and terminus velocity to investigate controls on frontal ablation. We find that frontal ablation is not dependent on ice dynamics, nor reduced by glacier surface freeze-up, but varies strongly with sub-surface water temperature. We conclude that calving proceeds by melt undercutting and ice-front collapse, a process that may dominate frontal ablation where submarine melt can outpace ice flow. Our findings illustrate the potential for deriving simple models of tidewater glacier response to oceanographic forcing. Text glacier Svalbard Tidewater PubMed Central (PMC) Svalbard Nature Communications 6 1 |
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Article Luckman, Adrian Benn, Douglas I. Cottier, Finlo Bevan, Suzanne Nilsen, Frank Inall, Mark Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature |
topic_facet |
Article |
description |
Rates of ice mass loss at the calving margins of tidewater glaciers (frontal ablation rates) are a key uncertainty in sea level rise projections. Measurements are difficult because mass lost is replaced by ice flow at variable rates, and frontal ablation incorporates sub-aerial calving, and submarine melt and calving. Here we derive frontal ablation rates for three dynamically contrasting glaciers in Svalbard from an unusually dense series of satellite images. We combine ocean data, ice-front position and terminus velocity to investigate controls on frontal ablation. We find that frontal ablation is not dependent on ice dynamics, nor reduced by glacier surface freeze-up, but varies strongly with sub-surface water temperature. We conclude that calving proceeds by melt undercutting and ice-front collapse, a process that may dominate frontal ablation where submarine melt can outpace ice flow. Our findings illustrate the potential for deriving simple models of tidewater glacier response to oceanographic forcing. |
format |
Text |
author |
Luckman, Adrian Benn, Douglas I. Cottier, Finlo Bevan, Suzanne Nilsen, Frank Inall, Mark |
author_facet |
Luckman, Adrian Benn, Douglas I. Cottier, Finlo Bevan, Suzanne Nilsen, Frank Inall, Mark |
author_sort |
Luckman, Adrian |
title |
Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature |
title_short |
Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature |
title_full |
Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature |
title_fullStr |
Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature |
title_full_unstemmed |
Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature |
title_sort |
calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature |
publisher |
Nature Pub. Group |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633826/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26450063 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566 |
geographic |
Svalbard |
geographic_facet |
Svalbard |
genre |
glacier Svalbard Tidewater |
genre_facet |
glacier Svalbard Tidewater |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633826/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26450063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2015, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566 |
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Nature Communications |
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6 |
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1 |
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1766010189074399232 |