Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Glaciology
Tidal flexure reveals effective elasticity in grounding zones on the Ross Ice Shelf
Published: 2025-04-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The grounding zones of Antarctic ice shelves are among the continent’s most dynamic regions, where floating ice shelves buttress grounded upstream ice and tidal forcing drives cyclic flexure at the ice-ocean-bed interface. We use ICESat-2 altimetry and airborne ice-penetrating radar to constrain the effective Young’s modulus E* of ice in the flexure zone at three sites on the Ross Ice Shelf. By [...]
Deep source regions for Patagonia backarc volcanism imaged by finite frequency body wave tomography
Published: 2025-04-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology
The subduction of Chile Ridge beneath South America beginning 12-16 Myr ago opened a gap in the subducting slab beneath southern Patagonia, which migrated northward and is located today at 46oS. Geodynamic processes associated with the slab window are poorly understood. Here we apply finite-frequency P and S body wave tomography to seismic data from several temporary arrays as well as regional [...]
Assessing Future Ice Shelf Collapse Vulnerability in the ISMIP6 Ensemble
Published: 2025-04-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding the possibility of future ice shelf collapses similar to the Larsen B is critical for improving sea-level-rise projections due to the restraint on upstream flow that ice shelves provide. Prior research has provided a criterion for assessing the vulnerability of ice shelf to hydrofracture. We apply these calculations to the model ensemble results from the Ice Sheet Modeling [...]
Three times accelerated glacier area loss in Svalbard revealed by deep learning
Published: 2025-03-22
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The rapid warming in polar regions highlights the need to monitor climate change impacts such as glacier retreat and related global sea level rise. Glacier area is an essential climate variable but its tracking is complicated by the labour-intensive manual digitisation of satellite imagery. Here we introduce ICEmapper, a deep learning model that maps glacier outlines from Sentinel-1 time series [...]
Ediacaran coupling of climate and biosphere dynamics
Published: 2025-03-14
Subjects: Climate, Glaciology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Throughout the Phanerozoic (538.8 Ma to present), climate change is demonstrably linked to radiations, extinctions, and turnovers in the biosphere. Here, we show that this connection existed in the late Ediacaran (~579 to 538.8 Ma), the first interval in Earth’s history to host complex macro-organisms, including early metazoans. Current correlations of glacial sedimentary deposits have been used [...]
Fracturing during freezing in salty ice: preliminary analysis using a low-cost model system
Published: 2025-03-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The fracture properties of saline water ice play an important role in governing the mechanical behavior of sea ice, marine ice sheets, and icy planetary bodies. Here, we design a low-cost experimental system based on a simple observation: fractures form when freshwater is frozen in a plastic bag, but do not form when a small amount of NaCl salt (several g/L) is added before freezing. We [...]
Challenges and Opportunities in Cryosphere in the Hindu Kush Himalaya
Published: 2025-03-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Hindu Kush Himalaya cryosphere faces critical challenges from climate change, including rapid glacier melt and reduced snow cover. These changes threaten water resources, ecosystems, and livelihoods across the region. However, opportunities emerge through advanced monitoring technologies and increased scientific understanding. Improved remote sensing and field observations allow better [...]
Subtemperate sliding reduces period of ice stream variability in a simple model
Published: 2025-02-06
Subjects: Glaciology, Non-linear Dynamics
Understanding the formation and evolution of fast flowing ice streams is essential to projecting the centennial-scale response of ice sheets to climate forcings. Slow flowing glaciers or stagnant ice streams can slide at low velocities over a bed that is below the bulk melting point of ice, dissipating small amounts of frictional heat. This phenomenon is typically referred to as subtemperate [...]
Model weighting for ISMIP6-Greenland based on observations and similarity among models
Published: 2025-01-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Glaciology
The Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6) resulted in a large number of ice sheet simulations from multiple ice sheet models. To-date, there are no model weighting studies that analyze or quantify the model performance and possible duplication of the ISMIP6 ice sheet models and the resulting effect on projections of mass loss. In this study, we adopt a model weighting scheme [...]
Simulating Seasonal Evolution of Subglacial Hydrology at a Surging Glacier in the Karakoram
Published: 2025-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology
Glacier motion, retreat, and glacier hazards such as surges and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are likely underpinned by subglacial hydrology. Recent advances in subglacial hydrological modeling allow us to shed light on subglacial processes that lead to changes in ice mass balance in High Mountain Asia (HMA). We present the first application of the SHAKTI subglacial hydrology model on an [...]
L-Band Radiometric Measurement of Liquid Water in Greenland's Firn: Comparative Analysis with In Situ Measurements and Modeling
Published: 2024-12-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology
The addition and refreezing of liquid water to Greenland's accumulation area are increasingly important processes for assessing the ice sheet’s present and future mass balance, but uncertain initial conditions, complex infiltration physics, and limited field data pose challenges. Satellite-based L-band radiometry offers a promising new tool for observing liquid water in the firn layer, although [...]
Emulator-based Bayesian calibration of a subglacial drainage model
Published: 2024-12-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Subglacial drainage models, often motivated by the relationship between hydrology and ice flow, sensitively depend on numerous unconstrained parameters. We explore using borehole water-pressure timeseries to calibrate the uncertain parameters of a popular subglacial drainage model, taking a Bayesian perspective to quantify the uncertainty in parameter estimates and in the calibrated model [...]
Glacier preservation doubled by limiting warming to 1.5°C
Published: 2024-12-15
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Glaciers adapt slowly to changing climatic conditions, resulting in long-term changes in their mass with implications for sea level rise and water supply, even if the climate were to stabilize. Using eight glacier evolution models, we simulate global glacier evolution over multi-centennial timescales, allowing glaciers to equilibrate with climate under various constant global temperature [...]
Modelling glacier mass balance and runoff in the Kaskawulsh River headwaters of southwest Yukon, Canada, 1980-2022
Published: 2024-11-29
Subjects: Glaciology, Hydrology
The highly-glacierized headwaters of the Kaskawulsh River are home to 9% of all glacier ice in Yukon, Canada, have been losing glacier mass at regionally representative rates, and were the source of a sudden meltwater-rerouting event in 2016 that has had significant downstream consequences. We use an enhanced temperature-index melt model driven by downscaled and bias-corrected climate reanalysis [...]
Investigating snow sinks on level sea ice: A case study in the western Arctic
Published: 2024-11-29
Subjects: Glaciology