Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surfaces
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Publication Date
3-28-2015
Volume
120
Disciplines
Earth Sciences
Abstract
The surface and basal boundary conditions exert an important control on the thermodynamic state of the Greenland Ice Sheet, but their representation in numerical ice sheet models is poorly constrained due to the lack of observations. Here we investigate a land-terminating sector of western Greenland and (1) quantify differences between new observations and commonly used boundary condition data sets and (2) demonstrate the impact of improved boundary conditions on simulated thermodynamics in a higher-order numerical flow model. We constrain near-surface temperature with measurements from two 20mboreholes in the ablation zone and 10m firn temperature from the percolation zone. We constrain basal heat flux using in situ measurement in a deep bedrock hole at the study area margin and other existing assessments. To assess boundary condition influences on simulated thermal-mechanical processes, we compare model output to multiple full-thickness temperature profiles collected in the ablation zone.Our observation-constrained basal heat flux is 30mW m2 less than commonly used representations. In contract, measured near-surface temperatures are warmed than common surface warmer than common surface temperature data sets by up to 15 degrees C. Application of lower basal heat flux increases a model cold bias compared to the measured temperature profiles and causes frozen basal conditions across the ablation zone. Temperate basal conditions are reestablished by our warmer surface boundary. Warmer surface ice and firn can introduce several times more energy to the modeled ice mass than what is lost at the bed from reduced basal heat flux, indicating that the thermomechanical state of the ice sheet is highly sensitive to near-surface effects.
Keywords
thermal boundaries; basal heat flux; munerical model; cold bias; surface temperature
DOI
10.1002/2014JF003375
Rights
© 2015 American Geophysical Union
Recommended Citation
Meierbachtol, T. W., J. T. Harper, J. V. Johnson, N. F. Humphrey, and D. J. Brinkerhoff (2015), Thermal boundary conditions on western Greenland: Observational constraints and impacts on the modeled thermomechanical state, J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf., 120, 623–636, doi:10.1002/2014JF003375.
Comments
An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright (2015) American Geophysical Union.