Subglacial topography and geothermal heat flux: potential interactions with drainage of the Greenland ice sheet

This is the published version, also available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007GL030046. [1] Many of the outlet glaciers in Greenland overlie deep and narrow trenches cut into the bedrock. It is well known that pronounced topography intensifies the geothermal heat flux in deep valleys and attenua...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: van der Veen, Cornelis J., Leftwich, T., von Frese, R., Csatho, Bea M., Li, Jilu
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: American Geophysical Union 2015
Subjects:
geothermal heat
glaciers
Topography
Greenland
Jakobshavn Isbræ
Ice Sheet
Jakobshavn
Jakobshavn isbræ
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1808/17298
https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL030046
Description
Summary:This is the published version, also available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007GL030046. [1] Many of the outlet glaciers in Greenland overlie deep and narrow trenches cut into the bedrock. It is well known that pronounced topography intensifies the geothermal heat flux in deep valleys and attenuates this flux on mountains. Here we investigate the magnitude of this effect for two subglacial trenches in Greenland. Heat flux variations are estimated for idealized geometries using solutions for plane slopes derived by Lachenbruch (1968). It is found that for channels such as the one under Jakobshavn Isbræ, topographic effects may increase the local geothermal heat flux by as much as 100%.

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