Supraglacial River Forcing of Subglacial Water Storage and Diurnal Ice Sheet Motion

• Published in: Geophysical research letters Vol. 48; no. 7
• Main Authors: Smith, Laurence, Andrews, L. C., Pitcher, L. H, Overstreet, B. T., Rennermalm, Å. K., Cooper, M. G., Cooley, S. W., Ryan, J. C., Miège, Clément, Kershner, C., Simpson, C. E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Goddard Space Flight Center AGU/Wiley Online 16.04.2021
• Subjects: Geosciences (General); Ice Sheet; Subglacial Water; Glacial
• ISSN: 0094-8276; 1944-8007
• DOI: 10.1029/2020GL091418

Surface melting impacts ice sheet sliding by supplying water to the bed, but subglacial processes driving ice accelerations are complex. We examine linkages between surface runoff, transient subglacial water storage, and short-term ice motion from 168 consecutive hourly measurements of meltwater discharge (moulin input) and GPS-derived ice surface motion for Rio Behar, a ∼60 sq. km moulin-terminating supraglacial river catchment on the southwest Greenland Ice Sheet. Short-term accelerations in ice speed correlate strongly with lag-corrected measures of supraglacial river discharge (r = 0.9, τ = 0.7, p < 0.01). Though our 7 days record cannot address seasonal-scale forcing, diurnal ice accelerations align with normalized differenced supraglacial and proglacial discharge, a proxy for subglacial storage change, better than GPS-derived ice surface uplift. These observations counter theoretical steady state basal sliding laws and suggest that moulin and proglacially induced fluctuations in subglacial water storage, rather than absolute subglacial water storage, drive short-term ice accelerations.