Volume 40 Issue 1
Feb.  2021
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Zemin Wang, Boya Yan, Songtao Ai, Kim Holmén, Jiachun An, Hongmei Ma. Quantitative analysis of Arctic ice flow acceleration with increasing temperature[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2021, 40(1): 22-32. doi: 10.1007/s13131-021-1718-1
Citation: Zemin Wang, Boya Yan, Songtao Ai, Kim Holmén, Jiachun An, Hongmei Ma. Quantitative analysis of Arctic ice flow acceleration with increasing temperature[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2021, 40(1): 22-32. doi: 10.1007/s13131-021-1718-1

Quantitative analysis of Arctic ice flow acceleration with increasing temperature

doi: 10.1007/s13131-021-1718-1
Funds:  The National Key R&D Program of China under contract No. 2016YFC1402701; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41941010, 41531069 and 41476162.
More Information
  • Corresponding author: E-mail: ast@whu.edu.cnjcan@whu.edu.cn
  • Received Date: 2020-08-14
  • Accepted Date: 2020-09-17
  • Available Online: 2021-04-21
  • Publish Date: 2021-01-25
  • This study explores the ice flow acceleration (21.1%) of Pedersenbreen during 2016–2017 after the extremely warm winter throughout the whole Arctic in 2015/2016 using in situ data and quantitatively analyses the factors contributing to this acceleration. Several data sets, including 2008–2018 air temperature data from Ny-Ålesund, ten-year in situ GPS measurements and Elmer/Ice ice flow modelling under different ice temperature scenarios, suggest that the following factors contributed to the ice flow acceleration: the softened glacier ice caused by an increase in the air temperature (1.5°C) contributed 2.7%–30.5%, while basal lubrication contributed 69.5%–97.3%. The enhanced basal sliding was mostly due to the increased surface meltwater penetrating to the bedrock under the rising air temperature conditions; consequently, the glacier ice flow acceleration was caused mainly by an increase in subglacial water. For Pedersenbreen, there was an approximately one-year time lag between the change in air temperature and the change in glacier ice flow velocity.
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