Subglacial lakes and hydrology across the Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands, West Antarctica

Subglacial water plays an important role in ice sheet dynamics and stability. Subglacial lakes are often located at the onset of ice streams and have been hypothesised to enhance ice flow downstream by lubricating the ice- bed interface. The most recent subglacial-lake inventory of Antarctica mapped...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: Napoleoni, Felipe, Jamieson, Stewart S. R., Ross, Neil, Bentley, Michael, Rojas Rivera, Andrés, Smith, Andrew, Siegert, Martin, Paxman, Guy J. G., Gacitua, Guisella, Uribe, José A., Zamora, Rodrigo, Brisbourne, Alex M., Vaughan, David G.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Gesellschaft MBH 2020
Subjects:
Beneath thwaites glacier
Ice stream C
Radar attenuation
Water-system
Siple dome
Sheet
Flow
Model
Bed
Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands
Pine Island Glacier
Rutford
Rutford Ice Stream
Siple
Siple Dome
Thwaites Glacier
West Antarctica
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Sheet
Ice Stream C
Pine Island
The Cryosphere
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4507-2020
https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/180084
Description
Summary:Subglacial water plays an important role in ice sheet dynamics and stability. Subglacial lakes are often located at the onset of ice streams and have been hypothesised to enhance ice flow downstream by lubricating the ice- bed interface. The most recent subglacial-lake inventory of Antarctica mapped nearly 400 lakes, of which similar to 14 % are found in West Antarctica. Despite the potential importance of subglacial water for ice dynamics, there is a lack of detailed subglacial-water characterisation in West Antarctica. Using radio-echo sounding data, we analyse the ice-bed interface to detect subglacial lakes. We report 33 previously uncharted subglacial lakes and present a systematic analysis of their physical properties. This represents a similar to 40 % increase in subglacial lakes in West Antarctica. Additionally, a new digital elevation model of basal topography of the Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands was built and used to create a hydropotential model to simulate the subglacial hydrological network. This allows us to characterise basal hydrology, determine subglacial water catchments and assess their connectivity. We show that the simulated subglacial hydrological catchments of the Rutford Ice Stream, Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier do not correspond to their ice surface catchments. UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) NE/J008176/1 Agencia Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo (ANID) Programa Becas de Doctorado en el Extranjero, Beca Chile 72180535

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