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Lookup NU author(s): Emily Hill
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press. Ice shelves restrain flow from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Climate-ocean warming could force thinning or collapse of floating ice shelves and subsequently accelerate flow, increase ice discharge and raise global mean sea levels. Petermann Glacier (PG), northwest Greenland, recently lost large sections of its ice shelf, but its response to total ice shelf loss in the future remains uncertain. Here, we use the ice flow model Úa to assess the sensitivity of PG to changes in ice shelf extent, and to estimate the resultant loss of grounded ice and contribution to sea level rise. Our results have shown that under several scenarios of ice shelf thinning and retreat, removal of the shelf will not contribute substantially to global mean sea level (<1 mm). We hypothesize that grounded ice loss was limited by the stabilization of the grounding line at a topographic high ∼12 km inland of its current grounding line position. Further inland, the likelihood of a narrow fjord that slopes seawards suggests that PG is likely to remain insensitive to terminus changes in the near future.
Author(s): Hill EA, Gudmundsson GH, Carr JR, Stokes CR, King HM
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Glaciology
Year: 2021
Volume: 67
Issue: 261
Pages: 147-157
Print publication date: 01/02/2021
Online publication date: 02/12/2020
Acceptance date: 14/10/2020
Date deposited: 07/01/2021
ISSN (print): 0022-1430
ISSN (electronic): 1727-5652
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2020.97
DOI: 10.1017/jog.2020.97
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