Sergienko, OV;
Wingham, DJ;
(2019)
Grounding line stability in a regime of low driving and basal stresses.
Journal of Glaciology
, 65
(253)
pp. 833-849.
10.1017/jog.2019.53.
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Abstract
The dynamics of a marine ice sheet’s grounding lines determine the rate of ice discharge from the grounded part of ice sheet into surrounding oceans. In many locations in West Antarctica ice flows into ice shelves through ice streams experiencing low driving stress. However, existing simple theories of marine ice sheets are developed under the assumption of high basal and driving stress. Here we analyze the grounding line behavior of marine ice streams experiencing low basal shear and driving stress. We find that in this regime, the ice flux at the grounding line is a complex function of the geometry of the ice-stream bed, net accumulation rate and gradient of the net accumulation rate. Our analysis shows that the stability of distinct steady states is determined by the same parameters, suggesting a more complex (in)stability criterion than what is commonly referred to within the context of the ‘marine ice-sheet instability hypothesis’. We also determine characteristic timescales (e-folding time) of ice-sheet configurations perturbed from their steady states. These timescales can be used to determine whether particular configurations can be considered in isolation from other components of the climate system or whether their effects and feedbacks between the ice sheet and the rest of the climate system have to be taken into account
Type: | Article |
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Title: | Grounding line stability in a regime of low driving and basal stresses |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
DOI: | 10.1017/jog.2019.53 |
Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2019.53 |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited |
Keywords: | Ice dynamics; ice-sheet modeling; ice streams |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10082674 |
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