Journal
JOURNAL OF GLACIOLOGY
Volume 62, Issue 236, Pages 1083-1092Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/jog.2016.106
Keywords
Arctic glaciology; glacier flow; glacier thinning
Funding
- MEXT (Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) through the Green Network of Excellence (GRENE) Arctic Climate Change Research Project
- Arctic Challenge for Sustainability (ArCS) Project
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [16H02224, 16H01772] Funding Source: KAKEN
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To quantify recent thinning of marine-terminating outlet glaciers in northwestern Greenland, we carried out field and satellite observations near the terminus of Bowdoin Glacier. These data were used to compute the change in surface elevation from 2007 to 2013 and this rate of thinning was then compared with that of the adjacent land-terminating Tugto Glacier. Comparing DEMs of 2007 and 2010 shows that Bowdoin Glacier is thinning more rapidly (4.1 +/- 0.3 m a(-1)) than Tugto Glacier (2.8 +/- 0.3 m a(-1)). The observed negative surface mass-balance accounts for <40% of the elevation change of Bowdoin Glacier, meaning that the thinning of Bowdoin Glacier cannot be attributable to surface melting alone. The ice speed of Bowdoin Glacier increases down-glacier, reaching 457 m a(-1) near the calving front. This flow regime causes longitudinal stretching and vertical compression at a rate of -0.04 a(-1). It is likely that this dynamically-controlled thinning has been enhanced by the acceleration of the glacier since 2000. Our measurements indicate that ice dynamics indeed play a predominant role in the rapid thinning of Bowdoin Glacier.
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