Liquid water content in ice estimated through a full-depth ground radar profile and borehole measurements in western Greenland

Brown, Joel; Harper, Joel; Humphrey, Neil

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-669-2017

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-669-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-669-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

Research article

|

02 Mar 2017

Research article |

| 02 Mar 2017

Liquid water content in ice estimated through a full-depth ground radar profile and borehole measurements in western Greenland

Joel Brown, Joel Harper, and Neil Humphrey

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Final revised paper (published on 02 Mar 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 30 Sep 2016)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of “Water content of Greenland ice estimated from ground radar and borehole measurements” by J. Brown et al.', Joseph MacGregor, 01 Nov 2016
- AC1: 'Response to: Interactive comment on “Water Content of Greenland Ice Estimated from Ground Radar and Borehole Measurements” Referee 1', J. Brown, 27 Dec 2016
RC2: 'Comments on Water Content of Greenland Ice Estimated from Ground Radar and Borehole Measurements by Brown et al.', Achim Heilig, 07 Nov 2016
- AC2: 'Response to Referee 2 comments', J. Brown, 27 Dec 2016
RC3: 'I'm not sure that I understand this paper ...', Anonymous Referee #3, 21 Nov 2016
- AC3: 'Response to Referee 3 comments', J. Brown, 27 Dec 2016
RC4: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #4, 05 Dec 2016
- AC4: 'Response to referee 4 comments', J. Brown, 27 Dec 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by J. Brown on behalf of the Authors (13 Jan 2017) Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (02 Feb 2017) by Marco Tedesco

AR by J. Brown on behalf of the Authors (06 Feb 2017) Manuscript

Short summary

We use ground-penetrating radar surveys in conjunction with borehole depth and temperature data to estimate the liquid water content (wetness) of glacial ice in the ablation zone of an outlet glacier on the western side of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Our results show that the wetness of a warm basal ice layer is approximately 2.9 % to 4.6 % in our study region. This high level of wetness requires special attention when modelling ice dynamics or estimating ice thickness in the region.