ORCID Profile
0000-0001-6992-1770
Current Organisation
Montana State University
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Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 20-03-2018
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 20-03-2018
DOI: 10.5194/TC-2018-5
Abstract: Abstract. Antarctica and Greenland hold enough ice to raise sea level by more than 65 m if they were to melt completely. Predicting future ice sheet mass balance depends on our ability to model these ice sheets, which is limited by our current understanding of several key physical processes, such as iceberg calving. Large-scale ice flow models either ignore this process or represent it crudely. To model fracture formation, which is an important component of many calving models, Continuum Damage Mechanics as well as Linear Fracture Mechanics are commonly used. However, these methods applied across the Antarctic continent have a large number of uncertainties. Here we present an alternative, statistics-based method to model the most probable zones of nucleation of fractures. We test this approach on all main ice shelf regions in Antarctica, including the Antarctic Peninsula. We can model up to 99 % of observed fractures, with an average rate of 84 % for grounded ice and 61 % for floating ice and mean overestimation error of 26 % and 20 %, respectively, thus providing the basis for modelling calving of ice shelves. We find that Antarctic ice shelves can be classified into groups based on the factors that control fracture location. The factors that trigger fracturing as well as sustain existing fractures advected from upstream vary from one ice shelf to another.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 05-10-2018
Abstract: Abstract. Antarctica and Greenland hold enough ice to raise sea level by more than 65 m if both ice sheets were to melt completely. Predicting future ice sheet mass balance depends on our ability to model these ice sheets, which is limited by our current understanding of several key physical processes, such as iceberg calving. Large-scale ice flow models either ignore this process or represent it crudely. To model fractured zones, an important component of many calving models, continuum damage mechanics as well as linear fracture mechanics are commonly used. However, these methods have a large number of uncertainties when applied across the entire Antarctic continent because the models were typically tuned to match processes seen on particular ice shelves. Here we present an alternative, statistics-based method to model the most probable zones of the location of fractures and demonstrate our approach on all main ice shelf regions in Antarctica, including the Antarctic Peninsula. We can predict the location of observed fractures with an average success rate of 84 % for grounded ice and 61 % for floating ice and a mean overestimation error rate of 26 % and 20 %, respectively. We found that Antarctic ice shelves can be classified into groups based on the factors that control fracture location.
Location: United States of America
No related grants have been discovered for Christopher Borstad.