Helheim Glacier ice velocity variability responds to runoff and terminus position change at different timescales
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s41467-022-33292-y.pdf
Description
Published version
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1.85 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Ultee, Lizz
Felikson, Denis
Minchew, Brent
Stearns, Leigh A
Riel, Bryan
Date Issued
2022
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Ultee, Lizz, Felikson, Denis, Minchew, Brent, Stearns, Leigh A and Riel, Bryan. 2022. "Helheim Glacier ice velocity variability responds to runoff and terminus position change at different timescales." Nature Communications, 13 (1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
AbstractThe Greenland Ice Sheet discharges ice to the ocean through hundreds of outlet glaciers. Recent acceleration of Greenland outlet glaciers has been linked to both oceanic and atmospheric drivers. Here, we leverage temporally dense observations, regional climate model output, and newly developed time series analysis tools to assess the most important forcings causing ice flow variability at one of the largest Greenland outlet glaciers, Helheim Glacier, from 2009 to 2017. We find that ice speed correlates most strongly with catchment-integrated runoff at seasonal to interannual scales, while multi-annual flow variability correlates most strongly with multi-annual terminus variability. The disparate time scales and the influence of subglacial topography on Helheim Glacier’s dynamics highlight different regimes that can inform modeling and forecasting of its future. Notably, our results suggest that the recent terminus history observed at Helheim is a response to, rather than the cause of, upstream changes.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41467-022-33292-Y
