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Modelling environmental influences on calving at Helheim Glacier in eastern Greenland

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posted on 2023-05-18, 12:45 authored by Susan CookSusan Cook, Rutt, IC, Murray, T, Luckman, A, Zwinger, T, Selmes, N, Goldsack, A, James, TD
Calving is an important mass-loss process for many glaciers worldwide, and has been assumed to respond to a variety of environmental influences. We present a grounded, flowline tidewater glacier model using a physically-based calving mechanism, applied to Helheim Glacier, eastern Greenland. By qualitatively examining both modelled size and frequency of calving events, and the subsequent dynamic response, the model is found to realistically reproduce key aspects of observed calving behaviour. Experiments explore four environmental variables which have been suggested to affect calving rates: water depth in crevasses, basal water pressure, undercutting of the calving face by submarine melt and backstress from ice mélange. Of the four variables, only crevasse water depth and basal water pressure were found to have a significant effect on terminus behaviour when applied at a realistic magnitude. These results are in contrast to previous modelling studies, which have suggested that ocean temperatures could strongly influence the calving front. The results raise the possibility that Greenland outlet glaciers could respond to the recent trend of increased surface melt observed in Greenland more strongly than previously thought, as surface ablation can strongly affect water depth in crevasses and water pressure at the glacier bed.

History

Publication title

The Cryosphere

Volume

8

Pagination

827-841

ISSN

1994-0416

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Copernicus GmbH

Place of publication

Germany

Rights statement

Copyright 2014 The Authors Licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in the earth sciences

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