A shallow approximation for ice streams sliding over strong beds

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2023.47. This is version 1 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Katarzyna L P Warburton , Duncan Hewitt , Colin R. Meyer, Jerome Neufeld 

Abstract

Ice streams are regions of rapid ice sheet flow characterised by a high degree of sliding over a deforming bed. The Shallow Shelf Approximation (SSA) provides a convenient way to obtain closed-form approximations of the velocity and flux in a rapidly-sliding ice stream when the basal drag is much less than the driving stress. However, the validity of the SSA approximation breaks down when the magnitude of the basal drag increases. Here we find a more accurate expression for the velocity and flux in this transitional regime before vertical deformation fully dominates, in agreement with numerical results. The closed-form expressions we derive can be incorporated into wider modelling efforts to yield a better characterisation of ice stream dynamics, and inform the use of the SSA in large-scale simulations.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X5Q668

Subjects

Glaciology, Partial Differential Equations

Keywords

Glacial rheology, Glacier flow, Ice dynamics, Ice streams, glacier flow, ice dynamics, ice streams

Dates

Published: 2023-03-29 09:06

Last Updated: 2023-03-29 16:06

License

CC BY Attribution 4.0 International