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Representing Grounding Line Dynamics in Numerical Ice Sheet Models: Recent Advances and Outlook

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Abstract

Recent satellite observations of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets show accelerated ice flow and associated ice sheet thinning along coastal outlet glaciers in contact with the ocean. Both processes are the result of grounding line retreat due to melting at the grounding line (the grounding line is the contact of the ice sheet with the ocean, where it starts to float and forms an ice shelf or ice tongue). Such rapid ice loss is not yet included in large-scale ice sheet models used for IPCC projections, as most of the complex processes are poorly understood. Here we report on the state-of-the art of grounding line migration in marine ice sheets and address different ways in which grounding line migration can be attributed and represented in ice sheet models. Using one-dimensional ice flow models of the ice sheet/ice shelf system we carried out a number of sensitivity experiments with different spatial resolutions and stress approximations. These are verified with semi-analytical steady state solutions. Results show that, in large-scale finite-difference models, grounding line migration is dependent on the numerical treatment (e.g. staggered/non-staggered grid) and the level of physics involved (e.g. shallow-ice/shallow-shelf approximation).

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Notes

  1. This is less valid in the case of an ice stream, where upstream of the grounding line longitudinal stress gradients may be dominant.

  2. ‘Mixed’ means that the computed unknowns are the horizontal and vertical velocities as well as pressure (Lestringant 1994).

  3. MISMIP: Marine Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project; http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~fpattyn/mismip/

  4. ice2sea is a science programme that is funded by the European Union Framework-7 scheme and will improve projections of the contribution of ice to future sea-level rise, http://www.ice2sea.eu.

  5. SeaRISE (Sea-level Response to Ice Sheet Evolution) is a community organized effort to estimate the upper bound of ice sheet contributions to sea level in the next 100–200 years, http://websrv.cs.umt.edu/isis/index.php/SeaRISE_Assessment.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by both the IceCube-Dyn project (Actions de recherche concertées) funded by the French Community of Belgium and the ice2sea project funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme through grant 226375 (ice2sea manuscript No. 20). The authors are greatly indebted to Gael Durand for his constructive review and to David Pollard who pointed out an error in the initially submitted manuscript.

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  1. Laboratoire de Glaciologie, Université Libre de Bruxelles, CP160/03, Av. F.D. Roosevelt 50, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    David Docquier, Laura Perichon & Frank Pattyn

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  1. David Docquier
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  2. Laura Perichon
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  3. Frank Pattyn
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Correspondence to David Docquier.

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Docquier, D., Perichon, L. & Pattyn, F. Representing Grounding Line Dynamics in Numerical Ice Sheet Models: Recent Advances and Outlook. Surv Geophys 32, 417–435 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-011-9133-3

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