A simple parametrization of mélange buttressing for calving glaciers

Schlemm, Tanja; Levermann, Anders

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-531-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-531-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-531-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

Research article

|

03 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 03 Feb 2021

A simple parametrization of mélange buttressing for calving glaciers

Tanja Schlemm and Anders Levermann

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Final revised paper (published on 03 Feb 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 17 Feb 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'review of Schlemm and Levermann', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Mar 2020
- AC1: 'Brief initial author response to reviewer #1', Anders Levermann, 12 Mar 2020
- AC2: 'Author response to all three reviewers', Anders Levermann, 17 Jul 2020
RC2: 'referee comments (Doug Benn)', Douglas Benn, 25 May 2020
- AC2: 'Author response to all three reviewers', Anders Levermann, 17 Jul 2020
RC3: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #3, 01 Jun 2020
- AC2: 'Author response to all three reviewers', Anders Levermann, 17 Jul 2020

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (04 Aug 2020) by Kerim Nisancioglu

AR by Anders Levermann on behalf of the Authors (26 Aug 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (01 Sep 2020) by Kerim Nisancioglu

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (15 Sep 2020) by Kerim Nisancioglu

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (30 Sep 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This is the second time I am reviewing the paper.

There have been some really nice upgrades, especially the connection to the melange thickness profile from Amundson and Burton, and the inclusion of time evolution in the parameterization.

My previous concerns have been addressed.

One thing that is still missing and would be useful is a paragraph (perhaps towards the end) summarizing and discussing the implications of the limitations of this melange parameterization that were introduced by the necessary assumptions and simplification steps.
A big one in my view, is the assumption that the melange thickness is the primary control on its strength. See Robel at al for example where he shows that it is the weakening bonds between individual icebergs that determine the melange strength. Also there are works suggesting that there is a limit to the strength the ice melange can exert at the calving front and that is because of buckling.
Finally, while what the authors derive is an upper bound, there are some effects that will make this upper bound actually higher, like ocean currents advecting icebergs away and melting them. So it is not a true upper bound.

Related to the above, I still think it would be insightful to diagnose the melange stress from the numerical model. This would allow an assessment of whether the parametrization causes realistic values of melange-caused backstress. Showing a time series of effective stress at the calving front for the different modeled scenarios would be sufficient and possibly informative.
I already mentioned this last time and it wasn't clear to me if the authors though it was a useless thing to do, a bad idea all together, or if there any issues in doing this, as this point has not been addressed.

Minor:
I appreciate that the authors included a table of symbols now, still though some of the symbols are missing from the table, e.g. "d".

There are some leftovers from the previous correction where the term "effective melange thickness" was introduced. I think the others decided to go with "melange thickness" so that should be consistently used everywhere. similarly "d" is still present, but undefined.

I think what the authors propose is a parameterization of melange buttressing effects, not a model of melange buttressing. The title and the abstract should reflect that - using the world parameterization would be enough to fix that.

P3L5: Observations at... instead of Observations in...
P7L5: mélange thinning instead of mélange thickness thinning
P9L10: the instead of die
P15L5: the choice instead of choice

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (01 Oct 2020)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (21 Oct 2020) by Kerim Nisancioglu

AR by Katja Gänger on behalf of the Authors (02 Dec 2020) Author's response

ED: Publish as is (14 Dec 2020) by Kerim Nisancioglu

AR by Anders Levermann on behalf of the Authors (17 Dec 2020) Author's response Manuscript