Sensitivity of ice sheet surface velocity and elevation to variations in basal friction and topography in the full Stokes and shallow-shelf approximation frameworks using adjoint equations

Cheng, Gong; Kirchner, Nina; Lötstedt, Per

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-715-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-715-2021

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-715-2021

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

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

Research article

|

15 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 15 Feb 2021

Sensitivity of ice sheet surface velocity and elevation to variations in basal friction and topography in the full Stokes and shallow-shelf approximation frameworks using adjoint equations

Gong Cheng, Nina Kirchner, and Per Lötstedt

Data sets

Numerical experiments for FS adjoint G. Cheng https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3611158

Numerical experiments for SSA adjoint G. Cheng https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3611154

Short summary

We present an inverse modeling approach to improve the understanding of spatiotemporally variable processes at the inaccessible base of an ice sheet by determining the sensitivity of direct surface observations to perturbations of basal conditions. Time dependency is proved to be important in these types of problems. The effect of perturbations is analyzed based on analytical and numerical solutions.