Widespread Moulin Formation During Supraglacial Lake Drainages in Greenland

Matthew J. Hoffman; Mauro Perego; Lauren C. Andrews; Stephen F. Price; Thomas A. Neumann; Jesse V. Johnson; Ginny Catania; Martin P. Lüthi

doi:10.1002/2017GL075659

Widespread Moulin Formation During Supraglacial Lake Drainages in Greenland

Matthew J. Hoffman
, Mauro Perego
, Lauren C. Andrews
, Stephen F. Price
, Thomas A. Neumann
, Jesse V. Johnson
, Ginny Catania
, Martin P. Lüthi

Computer Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

49 Scopus citations

Abstract

Moulins permit access of surface meltwater to the glacier bed, causing basal lubrication and ice speedup in the ablation zone of western Greenland during summer. Despite the substantial impact of moulins on ice dynamics, the conditions under which they form are poorly understood. We assimilate a time series of ice surface velocity from a network of eleven Global Positioning System receivers into an ice sheet model to estimate ice sheet stresses during winter, spring, and summer in a ∼30 × 10 km region. Surface-parallel von Mises stress increases slightly during spring speedup and early summer, sufficient to allow formation of 16% of moulins mapped in the study area. In contrast, 63% of moulins experience stresses over the tensile strength of ice during a short (hours) supraglacial lake drainage event. Lake drainages appear to control moulin density, which is itself a control on subglacial drainage efficiency and summer ice velocities.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	778-788
Number of pages	11
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	45
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075659
State	Published - Jan 28 2018

Funding

This work was supported by a grant to M. J. H. from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Early Career Research Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (20160608ECR). Support for M. P. and S. F. P. was provided by the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research, and Biological and Environmental Research Programs. Sandia National Laboratories is a mul- timission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525. L. C. A. was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center, administered by Universities Space Research Association under contract with NASA, and UTIG Ewing-Worzel and Gale White Graduate Student Fellowships. J. J. was supported by National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs award 1504457. M. L. was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation grant 200021_127197. Satellite data access for this work provided by the Polar Geospatial Center under National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs awards 1043681 and 1559691. We thank Robert Hawley, Claudia Ryser, and Kristin Schild for contributing to the field work that generated data used in this study. We thank Kristin Poinar for discussions on crevasse and moulin development and Blaine Morriss for consultation on the supraglacial lake drainage record. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The Albany/FELIX model is openly developed and available at https://github.com/gahansen/Albany. Model configuration files and prepro cessing and postprocessing scripts are available at https://bitbucket.org/ mhoffman/rogue_inversion. Observational data and model output are archived at https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.1044471.

Funders	Funder number
Biological and Environmental Research
1559691, 1043681
Universities Space Research Association
1504457
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
DE-NA-0003525
Los Alamos National Laboratory	20160608ECR
200021_127197

Keywords

Greenland
fracturing
hydrology
ice sheets
modeling
moulins

Access to Document

10.1002/2017GL075659

Cite this

@article{4f1abe88ddde4f8ea2cd435fbaa120f3,

title = "Widespread Moulin Formation During Supraglacial Lake Drainages in Greenland",

abstract = "Moulins permit access of surface meltwater to the glacier bed, causing basal lubrication and ice speedup in the ablation zone of western Greenland during summer. Despite the substantial impact of moulins on ice dynamics, the conditions under which they form are poorly understood. We assimilate a time series of ice surface velocity from a network of eleven Global Positioning System receivers into an ice sheet model to estimate ice sheet stresses during winter, spring, and summer in a ∼30 × 10 km region. Surface-parallel von Mises stress increases slightly during spring speedup and early summer, sufficient to allow formation of 16\% of moulins mapped in the study area. In contrast, 63\% of moulins experience stresses over the tensile strength of ice during a short (hours) supraglacial lake drainage event. Lake drainages appear to control moulin density, which is itself a control on subglacial drainage efficiency and summer ice velocities.",

keywords = "Greenland, fracturing, hydrology, ice sheets, modeling, moulins",

author = "Hoffman, \{Matthew J.\} and Mauro Perego and Andrews, \{Lauren C.\} and Price, \{Stephen F.\} and Neumann, \{Thomas A.\} and Johnson, \{Jesse V.\} and Ginny Catania and L{\"u}thi, \{Martin P.\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2018. The Authors.",

year = "2018",

month = jan,

day = "28",

doi = "10.1002/2017GL075659",

language = "English",

volume = "45",

pages = "778--788",

journal = "Geophysical Research Letters",

issn = "0094-8276",

publisher = "John Wiley and Sons Inc.",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Widespread Moulin Formation During Supraglacial Lake Drainages in Greenland

AU - Hoffman, Matthew J.

AU - Perego, Mauro

AU - Andrews, Lauren C.

AU - Price, Stephen F.

AU - Neumann, Thomas A.

AU - Johnson, Jesse V.

AU - Catania, Ginny

AU - Lüthi, Martin P.

PY - 2018/1/28

Y1 - 2018/1/28

N2 - Moulins permit access of surface meltwater to the glacier bed, causing basal lubrication and ice speedup in the ablation zone of western Greenland during summer. Despite the substantial impact of moulins on ice dynamics, the conditions under which they form are poorly understood. We assimilate a time series of ice surface velocity from a network of eleven Global Positioning System receivers into an ice sheet model to estimate ice sheet stresses during winter, spring, and summer in a ∼30 × 10 km region. Surface-parallel von Mises stress increases slightly during spring speedup and early summer, sufficient to allow formation of 16% of moulins mapped in the study area. In contrast, 63% of moulins experience stresses over the tensile strength of ice during a short (hours) supraglacial lake drainage event. Lake drainages appear to control moulin density, which is itself a control on subglacial drainage efficiency and summer ice velocities.

AB - Moulins permit access of surface meltwater to the glacier bed, causing basal lubrication and ice speedup in the ablation zone of western Greenland during summer. Despite the substantial impact of moulins on ice dynamics, the conditions under which they form are poorly understood. We assimilate a time series of ice surface velocity from a network of eleven Global Positioning System receivers into an ice sheet model to estimate ice sheet stresses during winter, spring, and summer in a ∼30 × 10 km region. Surface-parallel von Mises stress increases slightly during spring speedup and early summer, sufficient to allow formation of 16% of moulins mapped in the study area. In contrast, 63% of moulins experience stresses over the tensile strength of ice during a short (hours) supraglacial lake drainage event. Lake drainages appear to control moulin density, which is itself a control on subglacial drainage efficiency and summer ice velocities.

KW - Greenland

KW - fracturing

KW - hydrology

KW - ice sheets

KW - modeling

KW - moulins

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85040790133

U2 - 10.1002/2017GL075659

DO - 10.1002/2017GL075659

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85040790133

SN - 0094-8276

VL - 45

SP - 778

EP - 788

JO - Geophysical Research Letters

JF - Geophysical Research Letters

IS - 2

ER -

Widespread Moulin Formation During Supraglacial Lake Drainages in Greenland

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this