Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska
Frontal ablation is a major component of the mass budget of calving glaciers, strongly affecting their dynamics. Most global-scale ice volume estimates to date still suffer from considerable uncertainties related to (i) the implemented frontal ablation parameterization or (ii) not accounting for fro...
Published in: | The Cryosphere |
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Language: | English |
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2019
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1983/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2657-2019 http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073592727&partnerID=8YFLogxK |
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ftubristolcris:oai:research-information.bris.ac.uk:publications/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd 2024-04-28T08:19:42+00:00 Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska Recinos, Beatriz Maussion, Fabien Rothenpieler, Timo Marzeion, Ben 2019-10-11 https://hdl.handle.net/1983/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2657-2019 http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073592727&partnerID=8YFLogxK eng eng https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Recinos , B , Maussion , F , Rothenpieler , T & Marzeion , B 2019 , ' Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska ' , Cryosphere , vol. 13 , no. 10 , pp. 2657-2672 . https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2657-2019 article 2019 ftubristolcris https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2657-2019 2024-04-03T16:14:53Z Frontal ablation is a major component of the mass budget of calving glaciers, strongly affecting their dynamics. Most global-scale ice volume estimates to date still suffer from considerable uncertainties related to (i) the implemented frontal ablation parameterization or (ii) not accounting for frontal ablation at all in the glacier model. To improve estimates of the ice thickness distribution of glaciers, it is thus important to identify and test low-cost and robust parameterizations of this process. By implementing such parameterization into the ice thickness estimation module of the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM v1.1.2), we conduct a first assessment of the impact of accounting for frontal ablation on the estimate of ice stored in glaciers in Alaska. We find that inversion methods based on mass conservation systematically underestimate the mass turnover and, therefore, the thickness of tidewater glaciers when neglecting frontal ablation. This underestimation can amount to up to 19% on a regional scale and up to 30% for individual glaciers. The effect is independent of the size of the glacier. Additionally, we perform different sensitivity experiments to study the influence of (i) a constant of proportionality (k) used in the frontal ablation parameterization, (ii) Glen's temperature-dependent creep parameter (A) and (iii) a sliding velocity parameter (f s ) on the regional dynamics of Alaska tidewater glaciers. OGGM is able to reproduce previous regional frontal ablation estimates, applying a number of combinations of values for k, Glen's A and f s . Our sensitivity studies also show that differences in thickness between accounting for and not accounting for frontal ablation occur mainly at the lower parts of the glacier, both above and below sea level. This indicates that not accounting for frontal ablation will have an impact on the estimate of the glaciers' potential contribution to sea-level rise. Introducing frontal ablation increases the volume estimate of Alaska marine-terminating glaciers from ... Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier glaciers Tidewater Alaska University of Bristol: Bristol Research The Cryosphere 13 10 2657 2672 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Bristol: Bristol Research |
op_collection_id |
ftubristolcris |
language |
English |
description |
Frontal ablation is a major component of the mass budget of calving glaciers, strongly affecting their dynamics. Most global-scale ice volume estimates to date still suffer from considerable uncertainties related to (i) the implemented frontal ablation parameterization or (ii) not accounting for frontal ablation at all in the glacier model. To improve estimates of the ice thickness distribution of glaciers, it is thus important to identify and test low-cost and robust parameterizations of this process. By implementing such parameterization into the ice thickness estimation module of the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM v1.1.2), we conduct a first assessment of the impact of accounting for frontal ablation on the estimate of ice stored in glaciers in Alaska. We find that inversion methods based on mass conservation systematically underestimate the mass turnover and, therefore, the thickness of tidewater glaciers when neglecting frontal ablation. This underestimation can amount to up to 19% on a regional scale and up to 30% for individual glaciers. The effect is independent of the size of the glacier. Additionally, we perform different sensitivity experiments to study the influence of (i) a constant of proportionality (k) used in the frontal ablation parameterization, (ii) Glen's temperature-dependent creep parameter (A) and (iii) a sliding velocity parameter (f s ) on the regional dynamics of Alaska tidewater glaciers. OGGM is able to reproduce previous regional frontal ablation estimates, applying a number of combinations of values for k, Glen's A and f s . Our sensitivity studies also show that differences in thickness between accounting for and not accounting for frontal ablation occur mainly at the lower parts of the glacier, both above and below sea level. This indicates that not accounting for frontal ablation will have an impact on the estimate of the glaciers' potential contribution to sea-level rise. Introducing frontal ablation increases the volume estimate of Alaska marine-terminating glaciers from ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Recinos, Beatriz Maussion, Fabien Rothenpieler, Timo Marzeion, Ben |
spellingShingle |
Recinos, Beatriz Maussion, Fabien Rothenpieler, Timo Marzeion, Ben Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska |
author_facet |
Recinos, Beatriz Maussion, Fabien Rothenpieler, Timo Marzeion, Ben |
author_sort |
Recinos, Beatriz |
title |
Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska |
title_short |
Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska |
title_full |
Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska |
title_sort |
impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in alaska |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/1983/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2657-2019 http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073592727&partnerID=8YFLogxK |
genre |
glacier glaciers Tidewater Alaska |
genre_facet |
glacier glaciers Tidewater Alaska |
op_source |
Recinos , B , Maussion , F , Rothenpieler , T & Marzeion , B 2019 , ' Impact of frontal ablation on the ice thickness estimation of marine-terminating glaciers in Alaska ' , Cryosphere , vol. 13 , no. 10 , pp. 2657-2672 . https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2657-2019 |
op_relation |
https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/e5ea0d2e-094c-4469-a4bd-87f17f8fc9bd |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2657-2019 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
10 |
container_start_page |
2657 |
op_container_end_page |
2672 |
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1797583063402676224 |