Investigations of Liquid Water Retention in the Greenland Firn Aquifer

Abstract:

Liquid water is retained year-round within the Greenland firn aquifer in the subsurface pore space predominantly in the southeast region of the ice sheet where accumulation and melt rates are high. Our group uses a combination of remote sensing methods and field-based measurements to investigate the aquifer near Helheim Glacier. We map the current spatial extent of the aquifer system from airborne radar measurements on board NASA’s Operation IceBridge (OIB) developed at the University of Kansas’s Center for Remote Sensing of the Ice Sheets (CReSIS). Ground-based measurements from five field campaigns (2011, 2013, 2014, and two in 2015) are used to investigate the depth, thickness, and volume of water, hydraulic properties of the aquifer system, water saturation concentrations, residence time of the water, and the flow within the aquifer. Techniques include ground penetrating radar, seismic refraction, nuclear magnetic resonance sounding, pumping tests, and environmental tracer measurements. We also model the potential of aquifer discharge into a crevasse to initiate a fracture to the bed of the ice sheet. These types of investigations are needed to understand the aquifers influence on the ice sheet’s mass balance.