Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Geoscientific Model Development
Publisher
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.
Publication Date
5-4-2015
Volume
8
Disciplines
Computer Sciences
Abstract
We present a numerical method for calculating vertically averaged velocity fields using a mass conservation approach, commonly known as balance velocities. This allows for an unstructured grid, is not dependent on a heuristic flow routing algorithm, and is both parallelizable and efficient. We apply the method to calculate depth-averaged velocities of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and find that the method produces grid-independent velocity fields for a sufficient parameterization of horizontal plane stresses on flow directions. We show that balance velocity can be used as the forward model for a constrained optimization problem that can be used to fill gaps and smooth strong gradients in InSAR velocity fields.
DOI
10.5194/gmd-8-1275-2015
Rights
© Author(s) 2015
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Brinkerhoff, D. and Johnson, J.: A stabilized finite element method for calculating balance velocities in ice sheets, Geosci. Model Dev., 8, 1275-1283, doi:10.5194/gmd-8-1275-2015, 2015.