Basal Melting Along the Floating Part of Byrd Glacier

A mass balance calculation was made for the floating part of Byrd Glacier, using 1978-79 ice elevation and velocity data, over the 45 km of Byrd Glacier from its grounding line to where it leaves its fjord and merges with the Ross Ice Shelf. Smoothed basal melting rates were relatively uniform over this distance and averaged 12 +/- 2 m yr(-1).

Calculating Basal Thermal Zones Beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet

A procedure is presented for using a simple flowline model to calculate the fraction of the bed that is thawed beneath present-day ice sheets, and therefore for mapping thawed, frozen, melting and freezing basal thermal zones. The procedure is based on the proposition, easily demonstrated, that variations in surface slope along ice flowlines are due primarily to variations in bed topography and ice-bed coupling, where ice-bed coupling for sheet flow is represented by the basal thawed fraction. This procedure is then applied to the central flowlines of flow bands on the Antarctic ice sheet where accumulation rates, surface elevations and bed topography are mapped with sufficient accuracy, and where sheet flow rather than stream flow prevails. In East Antarctica, the usual condition is a low thawed fraction in subglacial highlands, but a high thawed fraction in subglacial basins and where ice converges on ice streams. This is consistent with a greater depression of the basal melting temperature and a slower rate of conducting basal heat to the surface where ice is thick, and greater basal frictional heat production where ice flow is fast, as expected for steady-state flow. This correlation is reduced or even reversed where steady-state flow has been disrupted recently, notably where ice-stream surges produced the Dibble and Dalton Iceberg Tongues, both of which are now stagnating. In West Antarctica, for ice draining into the Pine Island Bay polynya of the Amundsen Sea, the basal thawed fraction is consistent with a prolonged and ongoing surge of Pine Island Glacier and with a recently initiated surge of Thwaites Glacier. For ice draining into the Ross Ice Shelf, long ice streams extend nearly to the West Antarctic ice divide. Over the rugged bed topography near the ice divide, no correlation consistent with steady-state sheet flow exists between ice thickness and the basal thawed fraction. The bed is wholly thawed beneath ice streams, even where stream flow is slow. This is consistent with ongoing gravitational collapse of ice entering the Ross Sea embayment and with unstable flow in the ice streams.

Controls on the Basal Water Pressure in Subglacial Channels Near the Margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Assuming a channelized drainage system in steady state, we investigate the influence of enhanced surface melting on the water pressure in subglacial channels, compared to that of changes in conduit geometry, ice rheology and catchment variations. The analysis is carried out for a specific part of the western Greenland ice-sheet margin between 66 degrees N and 66 degrees 30' N using new high-resolution digital elevation models of the subglacial topography and the ice-sheet surface, based on an airborne ice-penetrating radar survey in 2003 and satellite repeat-track interferometric synthetic aperture radar analysis of European Remote-sensing Satellite 1 and 2 (ERS-1/-2) imagery, respectively. The water pressure is calculated up-glacier along a likely subglacial channel at distances of 1, 5 and 9 km from the outlet at the ice margin, using a modified version of Rothlisberger's equation. Our results show that for the margin of the western Greenland ice sheet, the water pressure in subglacial channels is not sensitive to realistic variations in catchment size and mean surface water input compared to small changes in conduit geometry and ice rheology.