Heat sources within the Greenland Ice Sheet: dissipation, temperate paleo-firn and cryo-hydrologic warming

Lüthi, M. P.; Ryser, C.; Andrews, L. C.; Catania, G. A.; Funk, M.; Hawley, R. L.; Hoffman, M. J.; Neumann, T. A.

doi:10.5194/tc-9-245-2015

Title: Heat sources within the Greenland Ice Sheet: dissipation, temperate paleo-firn and cryo-hydrologic warming

Journal Article · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2015 · The Cryosphere (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-245-2015· OSTI ID:1208896

Lüthi, M. P. ^[1]; Ryser, C. ^[1]; Andrews, L. C. ^[2]; Catania, G. A. ^[2]; Funk, M. ^[1]; Hawley, R. L. ^[3]; Hoffman, M. J. ^[4]; Neumann, T. A. ^[5]

ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Versuchsanstalt fuer Wasserbau, Hydrologie und Glaziologie (VAW)
Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States). Inst. for Geophysics and Dept. of Geological Sciences
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States). Dept. of Earth Sciences
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics Group
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)

Ice temperature profiles from the Greenland Ice Sheet contain information on the deformation history, past climates and recent warming. We present full-depth temperature profiles from two drill sites on a flow line passing through Swiss Camp, West Greenland. Numerical modeling reveals that ice temperatures are considerably higher than would be expected from heat diffusion and dissipation alone. The possible causes for this extra heat are evaluated using a Lagrangian heat flow model. The model results reveal that the observations can be explained with a combination of different processes: enhanced dissipation (strain heating) in ice-age ice, temperate paleo-firn, and cryo-hydrologic warming in deep crevasses.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

OSTI ID:: 1208896

Journal Information:: The Cryosphere (Online), Vol. 9, Issue 1; ISSN 1994-0424

Publisher:: European Geosciences UnionCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 43 works

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