Supraglacial lake drainage at a fast-flowing Greenlandic outlet glacier.

ABSTRACT: Supraglacial lake drainage events influence Greenland Ice Sheet dynamics on hourly to interannual timescales. However, direct observations are rare, and, to date, no in situ studies exist from fast-flowing sectors of the ice sheet. Here, we present observations of a rapid lake drainage event at Store Glacier, west Greenland, in 2018. The drainage event transported 4.8 × 10⁶ m³ of meltwater to the glacier bed in ∼5 h, reducing the lake to a third of its original volume. During drainage, the local ice surface rose by 0.55 m, and surface velocity increased from 2.0 m⋅d^-1 to 5.3 m⋅d^-1 Dynamic responses were greatest ∼4 km downstream from the lake, which we interpret as an area of transient water storage constrained by basal topography. Drainage initi

SUBMITTER: Chudley TR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6926039 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature