The Impact of Basal Roughness on Inland Thwaites Glacier Sliding.

ABSTRACT: Swath radar technology enables three-dimensional mapping of modern glacier beds over large areas at resolutions that are higher than those typically used in ice-flow models. These data may enable new understanding of processes at the ice-bed interface. Here, we use two densely surveyed swath-mapped topographies (<50 m² resolution) of Thwaites Glacier to investigate the sensitivity of inferred basal friction proxies to bed roughness magnitude and orientation. Our work suggests that along-flow roughness influences inferred friction more than transverse-flow roughness, which agrees with analytic form-drag sliding theory. Using our model results, we calculate the slip length (the ratio of internal shear to basal slip). We find excellent agreement between the numerically derived slip

SUBMITTER: Hoffman AO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9541487 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature