Articles | Volume 14, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1703-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1703-2020
Research article
 | 
29 May 2020
Research article |  | 29 May 2020

Horizontal ice flow impacts the firn structure of Greenland's percolation zone

Rosemary Leone, Joel Harper, Toby Meierbachtol, and Neil Humphrey

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Cited articles

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Short summary
Horizontal ice flow transports the firn layer of Greenland’s Percolation Zone as it undergoes burial by accumulation. Here we show that the firn density and temperature fields can reflect horizontal advection of the firn column across climate gradients, the magnitude of which varies around the ice sheet. Further, time series of melt features in ice cores from the percolation zone can contain a signature from ice motion that should not be conflated with that from climate change.