Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Apr;123(4):837-850.
doi: 10.1002/2017JF004409. Epub 2018 Mar 22.

Dynamics of active subglacial lakes in Recovery Ice Stream

C F Dow  1   2 , M A Werder  3 , G Babonis  4 , S Nowicki  2 , R T Walker  2   5 , B Csatho  4 , M Morlighem  6
Affiliations

Dynamics of active subglacial lakes in Recovery Ice Stream

C F Dow et al. J Geophys Res Earth Surf. 2018 Apr.

Abstract

Recovery Ice Stream has a substantial number of active subglacial lakes that are observed, with satellite altimetry, to grow and drain over multiple years. These lakes store and release water that could be important for controlling the velocity of the ice stream. We apply a subglacial hydrology model to analyze lake growth and drainage characteristics together with the simultaneous development of the ice stream hydrological network. Our outputs produce a good match between modeled lake location and those identified using satellite altimetry for many of the lakes. The modeled subglacial system demonstrates development of pressure waves that initiate at the ice stream neck and transit to within 100 km of the terminus. These waves alter the hydraulic potential of the ice stream and encourage growth and drainage of the subglacial lakes. Lake drainage can cause large R-channels to develop between basal overdeepenings that persist for multiple years. The pressure waves, along with lake growth and drainage rates, do not identically repeat over multiple years, due to basal network development. This suggests that the subglacial hydrology of Recovery Ice Stream is influenced by regional drainage development on the scale of hundreds of kilometers rather than local conditions over tens of kilometers.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
a) Basal DEM (non-smoothed) of Recovery Ice Stream and its catchment (black line) including both BEDMAP2 data and the mass conservation data. b) Modeling domain with smoothed basal topography and the locations of the ICESat-derived lakes from Fricker et al. [2014]. Inset shows the study location in Antarctica.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Recovery Ice Stream domain plots including, for the entire model run, a) the minimum effective pressure in each element and, b) the maximum water depth in each element (note that outputs are on a log scale for plotting clarity). Lakes identified from ICESat are delimited in black. c) Recovery Ice Stream surface velocity (note that data are limited to 300 m/a for plotting clarity) [Rignot et al., 2011]. The model domain is outlined in black and the 80 m/a contour in red.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Effective pressure (including channel size shown by the black lines, with thicker lines indicating larger channels) and water depth outputs for the Recovery Ice Stream domain plotted at 5-year intervals.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
a) Location of modeled outputs in Recovery Ice Stream plotted in b-d). b) Water pressure outputs plotted as a percentage of ice overburden. c) Water depth outputs. d) Water accumulation (positive) and drainage (negative) rates.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
a) Location of ICESat elevation time series on Recovery Ice Stream plotted in b). b) Observed ice sheet surface elevation time series derived from altimetry over the Recovery lakes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Banwell A, Hewitt I, Willis I, and Arnold N. (2016), Moulin density controls drainage development beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 121 (12), 2248–2269.
    1. Bartholomew I, Nienow P, Sole A, Mair D, Cowton T, and King MA (2012), Short-term variability in Greenland Ice Sheet motion forced by time-varying meltwater drainage: Implications for the relationship between subglacial drainage system behavior and ice velocity, Journal of Geophysical Research, 117 (F3), F03,002.
    1. Bell RE, Studinger M, Shuman CA, Fahnestock MA, and Joughin I. (2007), Large subglacial lakes in East Antarctica at the onset of fast-flowing ice streams, Nature, 445 (7130), 904–907. - PubMed
    1. Borsa AA, Moholdt G, Fricker HA, and Brunt KM (2014), A range correction for ICESat and its potential impact on ice-sheet mass balance studies, The Cryosphere, 8 (2), 345–357, doi:10.5194/tc-8-345-2014. - DOI
    1. Carter S, and Fricker H. (2012), The supply of subglacial meltwater to the grounding line of the Siple Coast, West Antarctica, Annals of Glaciology, 53 (60), 267–280.