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Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature

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Benn_2015_NC_Calving_CC.pdf (4.207Mb)
Date
09/10/2015
Author
Luckman, A.
Benn, Doug I
Cottier, F.
Bevan, S.
Nilsen, F.
Inall, M.
Keywords
GC Oceanography
GE Environmental Sciences
3rd-NDAS
BDC
R2C
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Abstract
Rates of ice mass loss at the calving margins of tidewater glaciers (frontal ablation rates) are a key uncertainty in sea level rise projections. Measurements are difficult because mass lost is replaced by ice flow at variable rates, and frontal ablation incorporates sub-aerial calving, and submarine melt and calving. Here we derive frontal ablation rates for three dynamically contrasting glaciers in Svalbard from an unusually dense series of satellite images. We combine ocean data, ice-front position and terminus velocity to investigate controls on frontal ablation. We find that frontal ablation is not dependent on ice dynamics, nor reduced by glacier surface freeze-up, but varies strongly with sub-surface water temperature. We conclude that calving proceeds by melt undercutting and ice-front collapse, a process that may dominate frontal ablation where submarine melt can outpace ice flow. Our findings illustrate the potential for deriving simple models of tidewater glacier response to oceanographic forcing.
Citation
Luckman , A , Benn , D I , Cottier , F , Bevan , S , Nilsen , F & Inall , M 2015 , ' Calving rates at tidewater glaciers vary strongly with ocean temperature ' , Nature Communications , vol. 6 , 8566 . https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566
Publication
Nature Communications
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9566
ISSN
2041-1723
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright 2015 the Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Description
TerraSAR-X data were provided by DLR (project OCE1503), and funded by the Conoco Phillips-Lundin Northern Area Program through the CRIOS project (Calving Rates and Impact on Sea level). A.L. and S.B. are affiliated to the Climate Change Consortium of Wales (C3W). Mooring work is supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (Oceans 2025 and Northern Sea Program) and the Research Council of Norway (projects Cleopatra: 178766, Cleopatra II: 216537, and Circa: 214271/F20). Contribution by F.C. was undertaken through the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience Environment and Society (SAGES).
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7747

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