Tidal modulation of ice shelf buttressing stresses

Robel, Alexander A. and Tsai, Victor C. and Minchew, Brent and Simons, Mark (2017) Tidal modulation of ice shelf buttressing stresses. Annals of Glaciology, 58 (74). pp. 12-20. ISSN 0260-3055. doi:10.1017/aog.2017.22. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20171220-130521553

PDF - Published Version
Creative Commons Attribution.
411kB

Use this Persistent URL to link to this item: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20171220-130521553

Abstract

Ocean tides influence the flow of marine-terminating glaciers. Observations indicate that the large fortnightly variations in ice flow at Rutford Ice Stream in West Antarctica originate in the floating ice shelf. We show that nonlinear variations in ice shelf buttressing driven by tides can produce such fortnightly variations in ice flow. These nonlinearities in the tidal modulation of buttressing stresses can be caused by asymmetries in the contact stress from migration of the grounding line and bathymetric pinning points beneath the ice shelf. Using a simple viscoelastic model, we demonstrate that a combination of buttressing and hydrostatic stress variations can explain a diverse range of tidal variations in ice shelf flow, including the period, phase and amplitude of flow variations observed at Rutford and Bindschadler Ice Streams.

Item Type:

Article

Related URLs:

URL	URL Type	Description
https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2017.22	DOI	Article
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/tidal-modulation-of-ice-shelf-buttressing-stresses/7B0FC6917DF68FBDF2EFD79BBF93148E	Publisher	Article

ORCID:

Author	ORCID
Robel, Alexander A.	0000-0003-4520-0105
Tsai, Victor C.	0000-0003-1809-6672
Minchew, Brent	0000-0002-5991-3926
Simons, Mark	0000-0003-1412-6395

Additional Information:

© The Author(s) 2017. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Published online: 04 September 2017. We thank Doug MacAyeal, Kelly Brunt, Hilmar Gudmundsson and Olga Sergienko for helpful conversations during the completion of this work. We also thank Bob Bindschadler and Hilmar Gudmundsson for providing GPS data. Source code and documentation of the models used in this study are available as public repositories on GitHub: https://github.com/aarobel/. AR has been supported by the NOAA Climate & Global Change and Caltech Stanback postdoctoral fellowships during the completion of this work. BM was supported by a NSF Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship award EAR-1452587. This work was also supported by NSF grant EAR-1453263.

Group:

Seismological Laboratory

Funders:

Funding Agency	Grant Number
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)	UNSPECIFIED
Caltech	UNSPECIFIED
NSF	EAR-1452587
NSF	EAR-1453263

Subject Keywords:

Antarctic glaciology, ice dynamics, ice/ocean interactions, ice-sheet modelling, ice shelves

Issue or Number:

DOI:

10.1017/aog.2017.22

Record Number:

CaltechAUTHORS:20171220-130521553

Persistent URL:

https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20171220-130521553

Official Citation:

Robel, A., Tsai, V., Minchew, B., & Simons, M. (2017). Tidal modulation of ice shelf buttressing stresses. Annals of Glaciology, 58(74), 12-20. doi:10.1017/aog.2017.22

Usage Policy:

No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.

ID Code:

83985

Collection:

CaltechAUTHORS

Deposited By:

Tony Diaz

Deposited On:

20 Dec 2017 21:16

Last Modified:

15 Nov 2021 20:15

Repository Staff Only: item control page