Progress toward globally complete frontal ablation estimates of marine-terminating glaciers

Kochtitzky, William; Copland, Luke; Van Wychen, Wesley; Hock, Regine; Rounce, David R.; Jiskoot, Hester; Scambos, Ted A.; Morlighem, Mathieu; King, Michalea; Cha, Leo; Gould, Luke; Merrill, Paige-Marie; Glazovsky, Andrey; Hugonnet, Romain; Strozzi, Tazio; Noël, Brice; Navarro, Francisco; Millan, Romain; Dowdeswell, Julian A.; Cook, Alison; Dalton, Abigail; Khan, Shfaqat; Jania, Jacek

doi:10.1017/aog.2023.35

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 97 publications

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“…Made famous after the tragic sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912, icebergs are broadly acknowledged as hazards to navigation and other offshore activities in the North Atlantic (e.g., Bigg et al., 2018; Ding et al., 2021; Hill, 2006). Those icebergs, largely calved from Greenland (Kochtitzky et al., 2022), usually travel through Baffin Bay before reaching the busy shipping lanes over the Grand Banks (offshore eastern Canada, Figure 1). As they calve and melt through their journey, icebergs also impact freshwater distribution in the subpolar North Atlantic (e.g., Martin & Adcroft, 2010), which may alter local‐to‐regional ocean dynamics (Marson et al., 2021; Yankovsky & Yashayaev, 2014) and marine productivity (Bigg et al., 2021; Hopwood et al., 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea Ice‐Driven Iceberg Drift in Baffin Bay

Marson,

Myers,

Garbo

et al. 2024

JGR Oceans

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Baffin Bay is the travel destination of most icebergs calving from west Greenland. They commonly follow the bay's cyclonic circulation and might end up far south along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, where many shipping routes converge. Given the hazard that icebergs pose to marine transportation, understanding their distribution is fundamental. One of the forces driving iceberg drift arises from the presence of sea ice. Observations in the Southern Ocean indicate that icebergs get locked in thick and concentrated sea ice. We present observations that support the occurrence of this sea ice locking mechanism (SIL) in Baffin Bay as well. Most iceberg models, however, represent the sea ice force over an iceberg as a simple drag force. Here, we implement a new parameterization in the iceberg module of the Nucleus for European Modeling of the Ocean (NEMO‐ICB) to represent SIL. We show that, by using this new parameterization, icebergs are more likely to travel outside of the Baffin Island Current during winter, which is supported by satellite observations. There is a slight improvement in the representation of iceberg severity along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and a slight shift of iceberg melt toward this region and Lancaster Sound/Hudson Strait. Although the impacts of icebergs on sea ice are still not represented, and targeted observations are needed for model calibration regarding sea ice concentration thresholds from which icebergs get locked, we are confident that this model improvement takes iceberg modeling one step forward toward reality.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea Ice‐Driven Iceberg Drift in Baffin Bay

Marson,

Myers,

Garbo

et al. 2024

JGR Oceans

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A high-resolution calving front data product for marine-terminating glaciers in Svalbard

Li,

Heidler,

Mou

et al. 2024

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. The mass loss of glaciers outside the polar ice sheets has been accelerating during the past several decades and has been contributing to global sea-level rise. However, many of the mechanisms of this mass loss process are not well understood, especially the calving dynamics of marine-terminating glaciers, in part due to a lack of high-resolution calving front observations. Svalbard is an ideal site to study the climate sensitivity of glaciers as it is a region that has been undergoing amplified climate variability in both space and time compared to the global mean. Here we present a new high-resolution calving front dataset of 149 marine-terminating glaciers in Svalbard, comprising 124 919 glacier calving front positions during the period 1985–2023 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10407266, Li et al., 2023). This dataset was generated using a novel automated deep-learning framework and multiple optical and SAR satellite images from Landsat, Terra-ASTER, Sentinel-2, and Sentinel-1 satellite missions. The overall calving front mapping uncertainty across Svalbard is 31 m. The newly derived calving front dataset agrees well with recent decadal calving front observations between 2000 and 2020 (Kochtitzky and Copland, 2022) and an annual calving front dataset between 2008 and 2022 (Moholdt et al., 2022). The calving fronts between our product and the latter deviate by 32 ± 65 m on average. The R2 of the glacier calving front change rates between these two products is 0.98, indicating an excellent match. Using this new calving front dataset, we identified widespread calving front retreats during the past four decades, across most regions in Svalbard except for a handful of glaciers draining the ice caps Vestfonna and Austfonna on Nordaustlandet. In addition, we identified complex patterns of glacier surging events overlaid with seasonal calving cycles. These data and findings provide insights into understanding glacier calving mechanisms and drivers. This new dataset can help improve estimates of glacier frontal ablation as a component of the integrated mass balance of marine-terminating glaciers.

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Progress toward globally complete frontal ablation estimates of marine-terminating glaciers

Cited by 2 publications

References 97 publications

Sea Ice‐Driven Iceberg Drift in Baffin Bay

Sea Ice‐Driven Iceberg Drift in Baffin Bay

A high-resolution calving front data product for marine-terminating glaciers in Svalbard

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