Articles | Volume 13, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-981-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-981-2019
Research article
 | 
22 Mar 2019
Research article |  | 22 Mar 2019

Ice-stream flow switching by up-ice propagation of instabilities along glacial marginal troughs

Etienne Brouard and Patrick Lajeunesse

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Cited articles

Alley, R. B., Anandakrishnan, S., Bentley, C. R., and Lord, N.: A water-piracy hypothesis for the stagnation of Ice Stream C, Antarctica, Ann. Glaciol., 20, 187–194, https://doi.org/10.3189/172756494794587032, 1994. 
Anandakrishnan, S., Alley, R., Jacobel, R. W., and Conway, H.: The flow regime of Ice Stream C and hypotheses concerning its recent stagnation, The West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Behavior and Environment, 77, 283–294, https://doi.org/10.1029/AR077p0283, 2001. 
Anandakrishnan, S. and Alley, R. B.: Stagnation of Ice Stream C, West Antarctica by water piracy, Geophys. Res. Lett., 24, 265–268, https://doi.org/10.1029/96GL04016, 1997. 
Anderson, J. B.: Antarctic marine geology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 297 pp., 1999. 
Batchelor, C. L. and Dowdeswell, J. A.: The physiography of High Arctic cross-shelf troughs, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 92, 68–96, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.05.025, 2014. 
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Short summary
Modifications in ice-stream networks have major impacts on ice sheet mass balance and global sea level. However, the mechanisms controlling ice-stream switching remain poorly understood. We report a flow switch in an ice-stream system that occurred on the Baffin Island shelf through the erosion of a marginal trough. Up-ice propagation of ice streams through marginal troughs can lead to the piracy of neighboring ice catchments, which induces an adjacent ice-stream switch and shutdown.