Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Between 1992 and 2017, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) lost ice equivalent to 7.6 ± 3.9 mm of sea level rise. AIS mass loss is mitigated by ice shelves that provide a buttress by regulating ice flow from tributary glaciers. However, ice‐shelf stability is threatened by meltwater ponding, which may ini...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7507767 2023-05-15T13:41:59+02:00 Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet Dunmire, D. Lenaerts, J. T. M. Banwell, A. F. Wever, N. Shragge, J. Lhermitte, S. Drews, R. Pattyn, F. Hansen, J. S. S. Willis, I. C. Miller, J. Keenan, E. 2020-07-31 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7507767/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32999516 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087970 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7507767/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32999516 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087970 ©2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Geophys Res Lett Research Letters Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087970 2020-10-04T00:42:57Z Between 1992 and 2017, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) lost ice equivalent to 7.6 ± 3.9 mm of sea level rise. AIS mass loss is mitigated by ice shelves that provide a buttress by regulating ice flow from tributary glaciers. However, ice‐shelf stability is threatened by meltwater ponding, which may initiate, or reactivate preexisting, fractures, currently poorly understood processes. Here, through ground penetrating radar (GPR) analysis over a buried lake in the grounding zone of an East Antarctic ice shelf, we present the first field observations of a lake drainage event in Antarctica via vertical fractures. Concurrent with the lake drainage event, we observe a decrease in surface elevation and an increase in Sentinel‐1 backscatter. Finally, we suggest that fractures that are initiated or reactivated by lake drainage events in a grounding zone will propagate with ice flow onto the ice shelf itself, where they may have implications for its stability. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Buttress ENVELOPE(-57.083,-57.083,-63.550,-63.550) The Antarctic Geophysical Research Letters 47 15 |
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English |
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Research Letters |
spellingShingle |
Research Letters Dunmire, D. Lenaerts, J. T. M. Banwell, A. F. Wever, N. Shragge, J. Lhermitte, S. Drews, R. Pattyn, F. Hansen, J. S. S. Willis, I. C. Miller, J. Keenan, E. Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet |
topic_facet |
Research Letters |
description |
Between 1992 and 2017, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) lost ice equivalent to 7.6 ± 3.9 mm of sea level rise. AIS mass loss is mitigated by ice shelves that provide a buttress by regulating ice flow from tributary glaciers. However, ice‐shelf stability is threatened by meltwater ponding, which may initiate, or reactivate preexisting, fractures, currently poorly understood processes. Here, through ground penetrating radar (GPR) analysis over a buried lake in the grounding zone of an East Antarctic ice shelf, we present the first field observations of a lake drainage event in Antarctica via vertical fractures. Concurrent with the lake drainage event, we observe a decrease in surface elevation and an increase in Sentinel‐1 backscatter. Finally, we suggest that fractures that are initiated or reactivated by lake drainage events in a grounding zone will propagate with ice flow onto the ice shelf itself, where they may have implications for its stability. |
format |
Text |
author |
Dunmire, D. Lenaerts, J. T. M. Banwell, A. F. Wever, N. Shragge, J. Lhermitte, S. Drews, R. Pattyn, F. Hansen, J. S. S. Willis, I. C. Miller, J. Keenan, E. |
author_facet |
Dunmire, D. Lenaerts, J. T. M. Banwell, A. F. Wever, N. Shragge, J. Lhermitte, S. Drews, R. Pattyn, F. Hansen, J. S. S. Willis, I. C. Miller, J. Keenan, E. |
author_sort |
Dunmire, D. |
title |
Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet |
title_short |
Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet |
title_full |
Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet |
title_fullStr |
Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet |
title_full_unstemmed |
Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet |
title_sort |
observations of buried lake drainage on the antarctic ice sheet |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7507767/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32999516 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087970 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-57.083,-57.083,-63.550,-63.550) |
geographic |
Antarctic Buttress The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Buttress The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Ice Shelves |
op_source |
Geophys Res Lett |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7507767/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32999516 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087970 |
op_rights |
©2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087970 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
container_volume |
47 |
container_issue |
15 |
_version_ |
1766161675937906688 |