Bounds on the calving cliff height of marine terminating glaciers: Bounds on glaciers

Ma, Yue; Tripathy, Cory S.; Bassis, Jeremy N.

doi:10.1002/2016GL071560

i

Bounds on the calving cliff height of marine terminating glaciers: Bounds on glaciers

2017
By Ma, Yue ; Tripathy, Cory S. ; Bassis, Jeremy N.

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Journal Title:

Geophysical Research Letters
Personal Author:

Ma, Yue ; Tripathy, Cory S. ; Bassis, Jeremy N.
Corporate Authors:

United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research ; Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections Program (U.S.)
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; CPO (Climate Program Office)
Description:

Increased calving and rapid retreat of glaciers can contribute significantly to sea level rise, but the processes controlling glacier retreat remain poorly understood. We seek to improve our understanding of calving by investigating the stress field controlling tensile and shear failure using a 2‐D full‐Stokes finite element model. Using idealized rectangular geometries, we find that when rapidly sliding glaciers thin to near buoyancy, full thickness tensile failure occurs, similar to observations motivating height‐above‐buoyancy calving laws. In contrast, when glaciers are frozen to their beds, basal crevasse penetration is suppressed and calving is minimal. We also find that shear stresses are largest when glaciers are thickest. Together, the tensile and shear failure criteria map out a stable envelope in an ice‐thickness‐water‐depth diagram. The upper and lower bounds on cliff height can be incorporated into numerical ice sheet models as boundary conditions, thus bracketing the magnitude of calving rates in marine‐terminating glaciers.
Keywords:

Dynamics Glacial Crevasses Glaciers Ice Calving Models Glacial Crevasses Ice Calving Calving Crevasse Failure Glacier Model
Source:

Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, 1369– 1375
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071560
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA13OAR4310099 ; Grant no. NA13OAR4310096
Rights Information:

Other
Compliance:

Submitted
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:28fe6ce6504f5cfb099bd1351ba60197d0b6987fae14b14014faf530cc7c1ac5
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/28380/noaa_28380_DS1.pdf
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[PDF - 695.26 KB ]

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