Journal
JOURNAL OF GLACIOLOGY
Volume 65, Issue 252, Pages 662-674Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/jog.2019.43
Keywords
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Funding
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- NASA [NNX15AL77G, NNX17AG63G]
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- NSF [1604076, 1708424]
- NERC [bas0100033] Funding Source: UKRI
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Office of Polar Programs (OPP) [1708424] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Office of Polar Programs (OPP)
- Directorate For Geosciences [1604076] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- NASA [NNX15AL77G, 798587] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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Increasing ocean and air temperatures have contributed to the removal of floating ice shelves from several Greenland outlet glaciers; however, the specific contribution of these external forcings remains poorly understood. Here we use atmospheric, oceanographic and glaciological time series data from the ice shelf of Petermann Gletscher, NW Greenland to quantify the forcing of the ocean and atmosphere on the ice shelf at a site similar to 16 km from the grounding line within a large sub-ice-shelf channel. Basal melt rates here indicate a strong seasonality, rising from a winter mean of 2 m a(-1) to a maximum of 80 m a(-1) during the summer melt season. This increase in basal melt rates confirms the direct link between summer atmospheric warming around Greenland and enhanced ocean-forced melting of its remaining ice shelves. We attribute this enhanced melting to increased discharge of subglacial runoff into the ocean at the grounding line, which strengthens under-ice currents and drives a greater ocean heat flux toward the ice base.
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