Modelling the impact of variations in ice sheet runoff on fjord and coastal biological productivity over annual to decadal timescales

Abstract:

Each summer, vast quantities of surface-derived ice sheet meltwater runs off from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Much of this runoff is injected into glaciated fjords at depth beneath marine-terminating glaciers. Due to its low relative density, the runoff rises as a buoyant plume up the glaciers’ calving fronts, entraining deep fjord water as it does so. This deep, ambient water tends to be relatively rich in nutrients and so the runoff plumes act to fertilise the surface layers of the fjord, leading to an observed late season spike in biological productivity in the fjord’s surface layers. Although surface melting and runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet are predicted to increase significantly in the coming years and decades, the potential effect of this on fjord and coastal biological productivity is yet to be quantified.

Here we present simulations of fjord circulation and biological productivity using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITgcm), and a new coupled representation of buoyant runoff plumes which enables decadal time period experiments of large three dimensional fjords. We investigate the effect on biological productivity of varying ice sheet runoff, ocean properties, near-surface winds and fjord geometry and bathymetry. We find that variations in ice sheet runoff are particularly important for biological productivity because the rate of discharge controls the depth at which the plumes reach neutral buoyancy and therefore whether the nutrient-rich deep water is delivered to the photic zone.