Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Glaciology
Rethinking grounding-zone basal drag for improved projections of Antarctic ice loss
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Glaciology
Ice-stream grounding zones are critical parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and we must be able to model how they retreat with confidence. This is because for most of Antarctica, the grounding-zone location determines the flux of ice to the ocean. As such, future grounding-zone locations (as the ice-sheet edge retreats inland) dictate the pattern and rate of ice loss and the associated sea-level [...]
Inverting InSAR Observations to Estimate Basal Melt Rates: A Grounding‑Line Response Function Approach
Published: 2026-02-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The grounding line hinge position for the Fimbul Ice Shelf (Antarctic Peninsula) was determined using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Interferometric data from June 2023 through October 2024. The data were used to determine the hinge position over eight different time intervals (i.e., SAR Pairs) at an average spatial resolution of 20 meters. The Fimbul Ice Shelf area of interest (AOI) was defined [...]
Automating glacier facies classification: pan-European dataset and deep learning baseline
Published: 2026-01-27
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Glaciology
Glacier facies play a critical role in understanding the mass balance of glaciers, offering insights into accumulation and melting processes. Large-scale mapping of glacier facies from satellite data is therefore essential for monitoring glacier response to climate change and informing climate policies. In this study, we present the largest glacier facies dataset ever compiled for Europe, [...]
Near-total loss of buttressing stresses observed on Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica
Published: 2026-01-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ice shelves, the floating extensions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, provide critical buttressing stresses that resist the seaward flow of ice and help set the position of the grounding line, where the ice goes afloat. As buttressing stresses are diminished by thinning or fracturing and collapse of the ice shelf, glaciers tend to accelerate. Here, we focus on the response of Pine Island Ice Shelf [...]
Large-scale rotational extension triggered basin formation in interior East Antarctica
Published: 2025-12-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Tectonics and Structure
Recent sub-ice topography investigations have imaged with greatly improved detail a set of enigmatic low-elevation V-shaped basins hidden beneath a very large sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here we show that these basins form a semi-continental sized fan shaped physiographic unit which radiates from a pin point near the South Pole and name it the East Antarctic Fan-shaped Basin Province. [...]
Governing the cryosphere beyond political timeframes
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Glaciology, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Sustainability
Cryospheric systems are nearing irreversible thresholds, yet political processes remain misaligned with the long timescales of ice loss. Using COP30 as context, we argue that cryosphere science must inform governance capable of linking near-term decisions with long-term stability in a rapidly changing world.
Glacier processes from seismic recordings on Sørsdal Glacier, East Antarctica
Published: 2025-10-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A catalogue of seismic events is produced and analysed for Sørsdal Glacier, East Antarctica. Recordings were made using an irregular array of three broadband and eight short-period seismometers, with approximately 3 km aperture, deployed slightly upstream of the expected grounding line during the 2017-18 austral summer. The broadband sensors were used to construct the event catalogue, and the [...]
Seasonal ice dynamics control the timing of crevasse drainage at a fast-flowing outlet glacier
Published: 2025-10-07
Subjects: Glaciology
Crevasse field drainage transfers at least half of the seasonal runoff from the surface to the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet, but the patterns of drainage are complex and spatio-temporally heterogenous. To better understand controls on crevasse drainage processes, we use an automated deep learning method to map the seasonal filling and drainage of water-filled crevasses at Sermeq Kujalleq (Store [...]
AI-Powered Flood Risk Assessment for Gilgit-Baltistan Using Multi-Source Satellite Data and Machine Learning
Published: 2025-09-20
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Geography, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology
Flood disasters are intensifying worldwide due to climate change, with mountainous regions among the most vulnerable yet least studied. This paper presents an AI-powered flood risk assessment framework for Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, a high-mountain region prone to flash floods and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Multi-source satellite datasets—including CHIRPS precipitation, JRC Global [...]
Nonlinear longitudinal stress coupling in glacier and ice sheet flow
Published: 2025-09-18
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Fluid Dynamics, Glaciology, Non-linear Dynamics
The Greenland and Antarctic Ice sheets exhibit high variability in flow speed, over multiple orders of magnitude. Faster flow in ice streams, marine terminating glaciers, and ice shelves is described by the Shallow Shelf/Shelfy-Stream Approximation (SSA), which requires a nonlocal balance between driving stress, friction at the ice-bed interface, and longitudinal/membrane stresses. Nonlocal [...]
Snowdrift and Accumulation on Landfast Ice Around Antarctic Icebergs: Insights from Modeling and Observational Data
Published: 2025-08-29
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Glaciology
Snow cover influences sea ice thermodynamics and mass balance, making its distribution and properties critical to polar research. Grounded icebergs in coastal Antarctica substantially affect surface snow distribution and landfast sea ice patterns, which has received limited scientific attention. To address this gap, this study integrates observational data with numerical snow transport [...]
Surface Expression of Low Basal Friction Upstream of Antarctic Grounding Lines
Published: 2025-08-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ice sheets leave contact with the bed at grounding lines, beyond which floating ice shelves experience no friction at their base. In places where basal friction begins to decrease upstream of the grounding line, ice sheets respond more strongly to climate forcing. However, the spatial extent of zones of low grounding line friction is poorly constrained by observations. Here, we use a steady-state [...]
Surging glaciers in Svalbard: Observing their distribution, characteristics and evolution
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Geomorphology, Glaciology
Glacier surges are episodes of significantly increased ice flow due to ice-dynamical feedbacks, and are often repeated in a quasi-periodical manner. Ice mass is redistributed during a surge, which leads to surface lowering at high elevation as ice is transferred down-glacier and thickening nearer the terminus. In this paper, we review different approaches for monitoring and detecting glacier [...]
An Ice Core Snapshot of Past Atmospheric Chemistry in Mt. Everest’s 'Death Zone'
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Glaciology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a unique atmospheric chemistry record from the highest ice core ever recovered (8020 m, South Col Glacier (SCG), Mt. Everest), that captures ~400 years of deposition during the latter half of the first millennium BCE. Due to recent glacier thinning, the upper ~2000 years of accumulation have been lost, however, this is the only ice core record ever recovered from the “Death Zone [...]
QuakeMigrate: a Python Package for Automatic Earthquake Detection and Location Using Waveform Migration and Stacking
Published: 2025-07-26
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Volcanology
QuakeMigrate is a modular, open-source Python package providing a framework to efficiently and automatically detect and locate microseismicity. From raw seismic waveforms and a modest number of physically meaningful inputs and tuneable parameters, it produces catalogues of earthquakes including hypocentres, their associated uncertainties, phase arrival times, and local magnitude estimates, all of [...]