Modeling the impact of glacial runoff on fjord circulation and submarine melt rate using a new subgrid-scale parameterization for glacial plumes

This work was funded by NERC grant NE/K014609/1 to Peter Nienow and Andrew Sole.The injection at depth of ice sheet runoff into fjords may be an important control on the frontal melt rate of tidewater glaciers. Here we develop a new parameterization for ice marginal plumes within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology General Circulation Model (MITgcm), allowing three-dimensional simulation of large (500 km2) glacial fjords on annual (or longer) time scales. We find that for an idealized fjord (without shelf-driven circulation), subglacial runoff produces a thin, strong, and warm down-fjord current in the upper part of the water column, balanced by a thick and slow up-fjord current at greater depth. Although submarine melt rates increase with runoff due to higher melt rates where the plume is in contact with the ice front, we find that annual submarine melt rate across the ice front is relatively insensitive to variability in annual runoff. Better knowledge of the spatial distribution of runoff, controls on melt rate in those areas not directly in contact with plumes, and feedback mechanisms linking submarine melting and iceberg calving are necessary to more fully understand the sensitivity of glacier mass balance to runoff-driven fjord circulation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Modelling the effect of submarine iceberg melting on glacier-adjacent water properties

Funding: This research has been supported by the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society and the University of St Andrews (PhD studentship).The rate of ocean-driven retreat of Greenland's tidewater glaciers remains highly uncertain in predictions of future sea level rise, in part due to poorly constrained glacier-adjacent water properties. Icebergs and their meltwater contributions are likely important modifiers of fjord water properties, yet their effect is poorly understood. Here, we use a 3-D ocean circulation model, coupled to a submarine iceberg melt module, to investigate the effect of submarine iceberg melting on glacier-adjacent water properties in a range of idealised settings. Submarine iceberg melting can modify glacier-adjacent water properties in three principal ways: (1) substantial cooling and modest freshening in the upper ∼50 m of the water column; (2) warming of Polar Water at intermediate depths due to iceberg melt-induced upwelling of warm Atlantic Water and; (3) warming of the deeper Atlantic Water layer when vertical temperature gradients through this layer are steep (due to vertical mixing of warm water at depth) but cooling of the Atlantic Water layer when vertical temperature gradients are shallow. The overall effect of iceberg melt is to make glacier-adjacent water properties more uniform with depth. When icebergs extend to, or below, the depth of a sill at the fjord mouth, they can cause cooling throughout the entire water column. All of these effects are more pronounced in fjords with higher iceberg concentrations and deeper iceberg keel depths. These iceberg melt-induced changes to glacier-adjacent water properties will reduce rates of glacier submarine melting near the surface, increase them in the Polar Water layer, and cause typically modest impacts in the Atlantic Water layer. These results characterise the important role of submarine iceberg melting in modifying ice sheet-ocean interaction and highlight the need to improve representations of fjord processes in ice sheet scale models.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Influence of glacier runoff and near-terminus subglacial hydrology on frontal ablation at a large Greenlandic tidewater glacier

Charlie Bunce is supported by a NERC DTP studentship (NE/L002558/1). Ben Davison is funded by the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES) and University of St. Andrews. We acknowledge field and research grants from the RGS-IBG postgraduate research fund and Mackay/Weir Greenland Fund (University of Edinburgh) awarded to Charlie Bunce and RGS-IBG postgraduate research fund, Mackay/Weir Greenland Fund (University of Edinburgh) and Centenary Funding (University of Edinburgh) awarded to Alexis Moyer (University of Edinburgh).Frontal ablation from tidewater glaciers is a major component of the total mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet. It remains unclear, however, how changes in atmospheric and oceanic temperatures translate into changes in frontal ablation, in part due to sparse observations at sufficiently high spatial and temporal resolution. We present high-frequency time-lapse imagery (photos every 30 min) of iceberg calving and meltwater plumes at Kangiata Nunaata Sermia (KNS), southwest Greenland, during June–October 2017, alongside satellite-derived ice velocities and modelled subglacial discharge. Early in the melt season, we infer a subglacial hydrological network with multiple outlets that would theoretically distribute discharge and enhance undercutting by submarine melt, an inference supported by our observations of terminus-wide calving during this period. During the melt season, we infer hydraulic evolution to a relatively more channelised subglacial drainage configuration, based on meltwater plume visibility indicating focused emergence of subglacial water; these observations coincide with a reduction in terminus-wide calving and transition to an incised planform terminus geometry. We suggest that temporal variations in subglacial discharge and near-terminus subglacial hydraulic efficiency exert considerable influence on calving and frontal ablation at KNS.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Controls on the transport of oceanic heat to Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier, East Greenland

Greenland's marine-terminating glaciers may be sensitive to oceanic heat, but the fjord processes controlling delivery of this heat to glacier termini remain poorly constrained. Here we use a three-dimensional numerical model of Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord, East Greenland, to examine controls on fjord/shelf exchange. We find that shelf-forced intermediary circulation can replace up to ~25% of the fjord volume with shelf waters within 10 d, while buoyancy-driven circulation (forced by subglacial runoff from marine-terminating glaciers) exchanges ~10% of the fjord volume over a 10 d period under typical summer conditions. However, while the intermediary circulation generates higher exchange rates between the fjord and shelf, the buoyancy-driven circulation is consistent over time hence more efficient at transporting water along the full length of the fjord. We thus find that buoyancy-driven circulation is the primary conveyor of oceanic heat to glaciers during the melt season. Intermediary circulation will however dominate during winter unless there is sufficient input of fresh water from subglacial melting. Our findings suggest that increasing shelf water temperatures and stronger buoyancy-driven circulation caused the heat available for melting at Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier to increase by ~50% between 1993–2001 and 2002–11, broadly coincident with the onset of rapid retreat at this glacier

Estimating spring terminus submarine melt rates at a greenlandic tidewater glacier using satellite imagery

Oceanic forcing of the Greenland Ice Sheet is believed to promote widespread thinning at tidewater glaciers, with submarine melting proposed as a potential trigger of increased glacier calving, retreat, and subsequent acceleration. The precise mechanism(s) driving glacier instability, however, remain poorly understood, and while increasing evidence points to the importance of submarine melting, estimates of melt rates are uncertain. Here we estimate submarine melt rate by examining freeboard changes in the seasonal ice tongue of Kangiata Nunaata Sermia (KNS) at the head of Kangersuneq Fjord (KF), southwest Greenland. We calculate melt rates for March and May 2013 by differencing along-fjord surface elevation, derived from high-resolution TanDEM-X digital elevation models (DEMs), in combination with ice velocities derived from offset tracking applied to TerraSAR-X imagery. Estimated steady state melt rates reach up to 1.4 ± 0.5m d-1 near the glacier grounding line, with mean values of up to 0.8 ± 0.3 and 0.7 ± 0.3m d-1 for the eastern and western parts of the ice tongue, respectively. Melt rates decrease with distance from the ice front and vary across the fjord. This methodology reveals spatio-temporal variations in submarine melt rates (SMRs) at tidewater glaciers which develop floating termini, and can be used to improve our understanding of ice-ocean interactions and submarine melting in glacial fjords.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Variability in ice motion at a land-terminating Greenlandic outlet glacier: the role of channelized and distributed drainage systems

We use a combination of field observations and hydrological modelling to examine the mechanisms through which variability in meltwater input affects ice motion at a land-terminating Greenlandic outlet glacier. We find a close agreement between horizontal ice velocity, vertical ice velocity and modelled subglacial water pressure over the course of a melt season. On this basis, we argue that variation in horizontal and vertical ice velocity primarily reflects the displacement of basal ice during periods of cavity expansion and contraction, a process itself driven by fluctuations in basal water pressure originating in subglacial channels. This process is not captured by traditional sliding laws linking water pressure and basal velocity, which may hinder the simulation of realistic diurnal to seasonal variability in ice velocity in coupled models of glacial hydrology and dynamics

Howe Pairs in the Theory of Vertex Algebras

For any vertex algebra V and any subalgebra A of V, there is a new subalgebra of V known as the commutant of A in V. This construction was introduced by Frenkel-Zhu, and is a generalization of an earlier construction due to Kac-Peterson and Goddard-Kent-Olive known as the coset construction. In this paper, we interpret the commutant as a vertex algebra notion of invariant theory. We present an approach to describing commutant algebras in an appropriate category of vertex algebras by reducing the problem to a question in commutative algebra. We give an interesting example of a Howe pair (ie, a pair of mutual commutants) in the vertex algebra setting.Comment: A few typos corrected, final versio

Spatially distributed runoff at the grounding line of a large Greenlandic tidewater glacier inferred from plume modelling

Understanding the drivers of recent change at Greenlandic tidewater glaciers is of great importance if we are to predict how these glaciers will respond to climatic warming. A poorly constrained component of tidewater glacier processes is the near-terminus subglacial hydrology. Here we present a novel method for constraining near-terminus subglacial hydrology with application to marine-terminating Kangiata Nunata Sermia in South-west Greenland. By simulating proglacial plume dynamics using buoyant plume theory and a general circulation model, we assess the critical subglacial discharge, if delivered through a single compact channel, required to generate a plume that reaches the fjord surface. We then compare catchment runoff to a time series of plume visibility acquired from a time-lapse camera. We identify extended periods throughout the 2009 melt season where catchment runoff significantly exceeds the discharge required for a plume to reach the fjord surface, yet we observe no plume. We attribute these observations to spatial spreading of runoff across the grounding line. Persistent distributed drainage near the terminus would lead to more spatially homogeneous submarine melting and may promote more rapid basal sliding during warmer summers, potentially providing a mechanism independent of ocean forcing for increases in atmospheric temperature to drive tidewater glacier acceleration

Sub-regional variability in the influence of ice-contact lakes on Himalayan glaciers

Ice-contact lakes modify glacier geometry and dynamics by shifting the majority of mass loss from the ice surface to the terminus. Lake-terminating glaciers are known to experience greater thinning rates and higher velocities than land-terminating glaciers, but the controls on variability in surface elevation change and ice flow between lake-terminating glaciers in different regions remain poorly explored. We combined existing datasets of glacier velocity, surface elevation change and glacial lake area to characterise the evolution of 352 lake-terminating and land-terminating glaciers within three Himalayan sub-regions between 2000 and 2019. These analyses show that the influence of ice-contact lakes propagates up-glacier across only the lowermost 30% of the hypsometric distribution, even where lakes are well established. We find that ice-contact lakes only affect glacier behaviour when the lakes reach an advanced evolutionary stage; most clearly manifested in the Eastern Himalaya by statistically robust differences in glacier-wide surface elevation change between lake-terminating (–0.68 ± 0.05 m a–1) and land-terminating (–0.54 ± 0.04 m a–1) glaciers. These differences are driven by the presence of a greater number of well-developed ice-contact lakes in the Eastern Himalaya compared to in the Western and Central Himalaya, resulting from greater mass loss rates to date