Sensitivity of tidewater glaciers to submarine melting governed by plume locations

This work was funded by NERC award NE/P011365/1 (CALISMO: Calving laws for Ice Sheet Models) to PI Benn. The response of tidewater glaciers to ocean warming remains a key uncertainty in sea level rise predictions. Here we use a 3‐D numerical model to examine the response of an idealized tidewater gl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Cowton, Tom, Todd, Joe A., Benn, Douglas I.
Other Authors: NERC, University of St Andrews. School of Geography & Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews. Bell-Edwards Geographic Data Institute
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Glaciers
Ice sheets
Calving
Submarine melting
G Geography (General)
DAS
BDC
R2C
G1
Ice Sheet
Tidewater
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10023/19859
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084215
Description
Summary:This work was funded by NERC award NE/P011365/1 (CALISMO: Calving laws for Ice Sheet Models) to PI Benn. The response of tidewater glaciers to ocean warming remains a key uncertainty in sea level rise predictions. Here we use a 3‐D numerical model to examine the response of an idealized tidewater glacier to spatial variations in submarine melt rate. While melting toward the center of the terminus causes only a localized increase in mass loss, melting near the lateral margins triggers increased calving across the width of the glacier, causing the terminus to retreat at several times the width‐averaged melt rate. This occurs because melting near the margins has a greater disruptive impact on the compressive stress arch that transfers resistance from the side walls to the body of the glacier. We suggest that the rate of terminus advance or retreat may thus be governed by the difference between ice velocity and submarine melting in the slow‐flowing zones away from the glacier center. Publisher PDF Peer reviewed

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