Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets

Gudmundsson, G.H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4236-5369. 2013 Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets. The Cryosphere, 7 (2). 647-655. 10.5194/tc-7-647-2013

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-647-2013

Abstract/Summary

Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine-type ice sheets are investigated numerically. Buttressing effects are analysed for a situation where a stable grounding line is located on a bed sloping upwards in the direction of flow. Such grounding-line positions are known to be unconditionally unstable in the absence of transverse flow variations. It is shown that ice-shelf buttressing can restore stability under these conditions. Ice flux at the grounding line is, in general, not a monotonically increasing function of ice thickness. This, possibly at first somewhat counterintuitive result, is found to be fully consistent with recent theoretical work. Grounding lines on retrograde slopes are conditionally stable, and the stability regime is a non-trivial function of bed and ice-shelf geometry. The stability of grounding lines cannot be assessed from considerations of local bed slope only.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.5194/tc-7-647-2013
Programmes:	BAS Programmes > Polar Science for Planet Earth (2009 - ) > Ice Sheets
ISSN:	1994-0424
Date made live:	01 May 2013 10:36 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/501733

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.5194/tc-7-647-2013

Programmes:

BAS Programmes > Polar Science for Planet Earth (2009 - ) > Ice Sheets

ISSN:

1994-0424

Date made live:

01 May 2013 10:36 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/501733