Abstract
Small-scale topographically-controlled glacier flow switching in an expanding proglacial lake at Breiðamerkurjökull, SE Iceland
Highlights
Understanding the internal dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets is important for predicting how they will respond to external forcing factors, such as rising sea level and warming ocean and air temperatures (e.g. Weertman, 1974; Thomas, 1979; Conway and others, 2002; Pfeffer, 2007; Favier and others, 2014; Aschwanden and others, 2016)
Flow switching, where the trajectory of ice flow significantly alters in time, has been inferred in modern ice sheets (e.g. Retzlaff and Bentley, 1993; Jacobel and others, 1996; Anandakrishnan and Alley, 1997; Conway and others, 2002; Hulbe and Fahnestock, 2004) and reconstructed in palaeo-ice sheets (e.g. Dowdeswell and others, 2006; Stokes and others, 2009; Ó Cofaigh and others, 2010; Stokes and Tarasov, 2010; Winsborrow and others, 2012; Stokes and others, 2014)
Dowdeswell and others (2006) suggested that flow switches may occur if accommodation space is filled with sediment
Summary
Understanding the internal dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets is important for predicting how they will respond to external forcing factors, such as rising sea level and warming ocean and air temperatures (e.g. Weertman, 1974; Thomas, 1979; Conway and others, 2002; Pfeffer, 2007; Favier and others, 2014; Aschwanden and others, 2016). Retzlaff and Bentley, 1993; Jacobel and others, 1996; Anandakrishnan and Alley, 1997; Conway and others, 2002; Hulbe and Fahnestock, 2004) and reconstructed in palaeo-ice sheets (e.g. Dowdeswell and others, 2006; Stokes and others, 2009; Ó Cofaigh and others, 2010; Stokes and Tarasov, 2010; Winsborrow and others, 2012; Stokes and others, 2014). Winsborrow and others (2012) reviewed the literature and proposed five mechanisms that may control flow switching: (1) accumulation of sediment causing accommodation space to be filled (Dowdeswell and others, 2006); (2) variations in bathymetry causing asynchronous response of ice flow (Stokes and others, 2009); (3) variations in basal thermal regime (Ó Cofaigh and others, 2010); (4) variations in subglacial meltwater routing and sticky spot location (Anandakrishnan and Alley, 1997); and (5) large-scale changes in mass balance (Payne and Dongelmans, 1997). We document observations of an active smallscale flow switch that is under way at Breiðamerkurjökull, SE Iceland
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