Influence of an Increasing Surface Melt Over Decadal Timescales on Land Terminating Outlet Glaciers

Abstract:

During the last decades, Greenland surface melt has shown an increase both in intensity and spatial extent. Part of this water probably reaches the bedrock and enhances the glacier speed, advecting larger volume of ice into the ablation area. In the context of a warming climate, this mechanism will contribute to the future rate of retreat and thinning of the land-terminating glaciers of Greenland. Complex couplings, implying both positive and negative feedbacks, prevail between surface mass balance, ice flow, basal hydrology and the evolution of the glacier geometry. Larger amount of melt water might increase or decrease the mean ice flow of a glacier, depending on the capacity of the basal hydrology network to evacuate this surplus of water, which in turn will influence the surface crevassing and the ability of water to reach the bedrock at higher elevations.
Here, using a coupled basal hydrology and prognostic ice flow model, the evolution of a Greenland-type glacier subject to an increasing surface melt is studied over few decades. The basal hydrology model, based on the GlaDS model, includes an inefficient cavity-type water sheet and a network of efficient discrete channels. Both systems are connected and evolve in time in response to the water inputs. The prognostic equations for ice flow and the hydrology model are implemented in the open source, finite element, ice sheet / ice flow model Elmer/Ice. Assuming a surface melt increase over the next decades, the evolution of crevassed areas and the ability of water to reach the bedrock is inferred. Our results indicate that the currently observed crevasse distribution is likely to extend upstream, leading to an increase in ice flow which, in turn, accelerates the retreat and thinning of land-terminating glaciers.