Fine-scale geothermal heat flow in Antarctica can increase simulated subglacial melt estimates

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: McCormack, FS, Roberts, JL, Dow, CF, Staal, T, Halpin, JA, Reading, AM, Siegert, MJ
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Amer Geophysical Union 2022
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Physical geography and environmental geoscience; Glaciology; Antarctic; East Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098539; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/152998

Antarctic geothermal heat flow (GHF) affects the thermal regime of ice sheets and simulations of ice and subglacial meltwater discharge to the ocean, but remains poorly constrained. We use an ice sheet model to investigate the impact of GHF anomalies on subglacial meltwater production in the Aurora Subglacial Basin, East Antarctica. We find that spatially-variable GHF fields produce more meltwater than a constant GHF with the same background mean, and meltwater production increases as the resolution of GHF anomalies increases. Our results suggest that model simulations of this region systematically underestimate meltwater production using current GHF models. We determine the minimum basal heating required to bring the basal ice temperature to the pressure melting point, which should be taken together with the scale-length of likely local variability in targeting in-situ GHF field campaigns.