Quantifying the Mass Balance of Ice Caps on Severnaya Zemlya, Russian High Arctic. II: Modeling the Flow of the Vavilov Ice Cap under the Present Climate

Abstract

To understand how ice masses in the Russian High Arctic respond to climate change, the processes that influence their current mass balance must be evaluated. A mass balance model was coupled with an ice-flow model to determine the influence of the present climate regime on the dynamics of the Vavilov Ice Cap, October Revolution Island, Severnaya Zemlya. Model results show that the bulk of the ice cap is flowing relatively slowly, at a velocity of around 5 m a−1. However, the climate regime encourages the ice cap to migrate toward the precipitation source in the southwest. The ice cap may not, therefore, be in equilibrium with the present climate. Given that the response time of the ice cap is of the order of 1000 years, this non-equilibrium may be related to changes in climate that occurred during the Little Ice Age, when the ice cap may have been north of its present position.