Semi-brittle rheology and ice dynamics in DynEarthSol3D

Abstract

Abstract. We present a semi-brittle rheology and explore its potential for simulating glacier and ice sheet deformation using a numerical model DynEarthSol3D (DES). DES is a finite element solver for the dynamic and quasi-static simulation of continuous media. The experiments within demonstrate that DES can simulate ice failure and deformation in dynamic regions of glaciers, especially at quickly changing boundaries such as where glaciers meet the ocean. We explore the effect that different initial, boundary, and material conditions have on ice flow and failure. We find that the use of a semi-brittle constitutive law is a necessary material condition to form the characteristic pattern of basal crevasse-aided pinch-and-swell geometry, which is observed globally in floating portions of ice and can often aid in eroding the ice sheet margins in direct contact with oceans.