A simple parametrization of mélange buttressing for calving glaciers

Both ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are discharging ice into the ocean. In many regions along the coast of the ice sheets, the icebergs calve into a bay. If the addition of icebergs through calving is faster than their transport out of the embayment, the icebergs will be frozen into a melang...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: Schlemm, Tanja (Dr.), Levermann, Anders (Prof. Dr.)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/62918
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-531-2021
Description
Summary:Both ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are discharging ice into the ocean. In many regions along the coast of the ice sheets, the icebergs calve into a bay. If the addition of icebergs through calving is faster than their transport out of the embayment, the icebergs will be frozen into a melange with surrounding sea ice in winter. In this case, the buttressing effect of the ice melange can be considerably stronger than any buttressing by mere sea ice would be. This in turn stabilizes the glacier terminus and leads to a reduction in calving rates. Here we propose a simple parametrization of ice melange buttressing which leads to an upper bound on calving rates and can be used in numerical and analytical modelling.