Planimetric ice-flow convergence and flow-orthonormal strain rate across the Antarctic Ice Sheet, with links to model result files

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1. Verfasser: Ng, Felix S L
Format: Dataset Open Access
Sprache:en
Veröffentlicht: PANGAEA 2015
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author Ng, Felix S L
author_facet Ng, Felix S L
collection Datos científicos de ciencias marinas y ambientales
contents Fast-flowing ice streams discharge most of the ice from the interior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet coastward. Understanding how their tributary organisation is governed and evolves is essential for developing reliable models of the ice sheet's response to climate change. Despite much research on ice-stream mechanics, this problem is unsolved, because the complexity of flow within and across the tributary networks has hardly been interrogated. Here I present the first map of planimetric flow convergence across the ice sheet, calculated from satellite measurements of ice surface velocity, and use it to explore this complexity. The convergence map of Antarctica elucidates how ice-stream tributaries draw ice from the interior. It also reveals curvilinear zones of convergence along lateral shear margins of streaming, and abundant convergence ripples associated with nonlinear ice rheology and changes in bed topography and friction. Flow convergence on ice-stream tributaries and their feeding zones is markedly uneven, and interspersed with divergence at distances of the order of kilometres. For individual drainage basins as well as the ice sheet as a whole, the range of convergence and divergence decreases systematically with flow speed, implying that fast flow cannot converge or diverge as much as slow flow. I therefore deduce that flow in ice-stream networks is subject to mechanical regulation that limits flow-orthonormal strain rates. These properties and the gridded data of convergence and flow-orthonormal strain rate in this archive provide targets for ice- sheet simulations and motivate more research into the origin and dynamics of tributarization.
format Dataset Open Access
id pangaea_https___doi_org_10_1594_PANGAEA_841137
institution PANGAEA
language en
publishDate 2015
publisher PANGAEA
record_format pangaea
spellingShingle Planimetric ice-flow convergence and flow-orthonormal strain rate across the Antarctic Ice Sheet, with links to model result files
Ng, Felix S L
File content; File format; File name; File size; pan-Antarctica; Uniform resource locator/link to model result file
Fast-flowing ice streams discharge most of the ice from the interior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet coastward. Understanding how their tributary organisation is governed and evolves is essential for developing reliable models of the ice sheet's response to climate change. Despite much research on ice-stream mechanics, this problem is unsolved, because the complexity of flow within and across the tributary networks has hardly been interrogated. Here I present the first map of planimetric flow convergence across the ice sheet, calculated from satellite measurements of ice surface velocity, and use it to explore this complexity. The convergence map of Antarctica elucidates how ice-stream tributaries draw ice from the interior. It also reveals curvilinear zones of convergence along lateral shear margins of streaming, and abundant convergence ripples associated with nonlinear ice rheology and changes in bed topography and friction. Flow convergence on ice-stream tributaries and their feeding zones is markedly uneven, and interspersed with divergence at distances of the order of kilometres. For individual drainage basins as well as the ice sheet as a whole, the range of convergence and divergence decreases systematically with flow speed, implying that fast flow cannot converge or diverge as much as slow flow. I therefore deduce that flow in ice-stream networks is subject to mechanical regulation that limits flow-orthonormal strain rates. These properties and the gridded data of convergence and flow-orthonormal strain rate in this archive provide targets for ice- sheet simulations and motivate more research into the origin and dynamics of tributarization.
title Planimetric ice-flow convergence and flow-orthonormal strain rate across the Antarctic Ice Sheet, with links to model result files
topic File content; File format; File name; File size; pan-Antarctica; Uniform resource locator/link to model result file
url https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.841137