What is it about?
Radar surveys show that melting occurs beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, and that the water layer between the ice and bedrock is significant over at least 7% of the ice sheet bed
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Why is it important?
The presence of subglacial water indicates that the basal temperature in these areas is above the pressure melting point and that friction between the ice and its bed in these area will be minimal. This provides ground truth for numerical models of the ice sheet, and therefore will aid in predicting its future behaviour.
Perspectives
This is the result of a long process of analysis of radar data generated by the PARCA program in 1999-2003, and resolves questions raised about the feasibility of such analysis. Different numerical models can now be distinguished on the basis of consistency with the results, and new models may use this information as a constraining input.
Gordon Oswald
University of Maine System
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Radar evidence of ponded subglacial water in Greenland, Journal of Glaciology, September 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/jog.2018.60.
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