Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 110, Issue 35, Pages 14156-14161Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1212647110
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Funding
- European Commission [226375]
- Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif - Centre Informatique National de l'Enseignement Superieur [2011016066]
- US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Biological and Environmental Research programs
- Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas through US National Science Foundation [ANT-0424589]
- DOE's Office of Science [DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC05-00OR22725]
- UK National Centre for Earth Observation
- Netherlands Polar Program of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
- Natural Environment Research Council
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/F021399/1, NE/I010874/1, NE/F021380/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- NERC [NE/F021380/1, NE/I010874/1, NE/F021399/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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We assess the effect of enhanced basal sliding on the flow and mass budget of the Greenland ice sheet, using a newly developed parameterization of the relation between meltwater runoff and ice flow. A wide range of observations suggest that water generated by melt at the surface of the ice sheet reaches its bed by both fracture and drainage through moulins. Once at the bed, this water is likely to affect lubrication, although current observations are insufficient to determine whether changes in subglacial hydraulics will limit the potential for the speedup of flow. An uncertainty analysis based on our best-fit parameterization admits both possibilities: continuously increasing or bounded lubrication. We apply the parameterization to four higher-order ice-sheet models in a series of experiments forced by changes in both lubrication and surface mass budget and determine the additional mass loss brought about by lubrication in comparison with experiments forced only by changes in surface mass balance. We use forcing from a regional climate model, itself forced by output from the European Centre Hamburg Model (ECHAM5) global climate model run under scenario A1B. Although changes in lubrication generate widespread effects on the flow and form of the ice sheet, they do not affect substantial net mass loss; increase in the ice sheet's contribution to sea-level rise from basal lubrication is projected by all models to be no more than 5% of the contribution from surface mass budget forcing alone.
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