Drivers of change of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, between 1995 and 2015
We run several transient numerical simulations applying these three perturbations individually. Our results show that ocean-induced ice-shelf thinning generates most of the observed grounding line retreat, inland speed-up, and mass loss, in agreement with previous work. We improve the agreement with...
| Published in: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
American Geophysical Union
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47516/ https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093102 https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47516/1/2021GL093102.pdf |
| Summary: | We run several transient numerical simulations applying these three perturbations individually. Our results show that ocean-induced ice-shelf thinning generates most of the observed grounding line retreat, inland speed-up, and mass loss, in agreement with previous work. We improve the agreement with observed inland speed-up and thinning by prescribing changes in ice-shelf geometry and a reduction in basal traction over areas that became ungrounded since 1995, suggesting that shelf breakups and thinning-induced reduction in basal traction play a critical role on Thwaites's dynamics, as pointed out by previous studies. These findings suggest that modeling Thwaites's future requires reliable ocean-induced melt estimates in models that respond accurately to downstream perturbations. |
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