In situ measurements of meltwater flow through snow and firn  in the accumulation zone of the SW Greenland Ice Sheet

Clerx, Nicole; Machguth, Horst; Tedstone, Andrew; Jullien, Nicolas; Wever, Nander; Weingartner, Rolf; Roessler, Ole

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4379-2022

Articles | Volume 16, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4379-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4379-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 10

Research article

|

19 Oct 2022

Research article |

| 19 Oct 2022

In situ measurements of meltwater flow through snow and firn in the accumulation zone of the SW Greenland Ice Sheet

Nicole Clerx, Horst Machguth, Andrew Tedstone, Nicolas Jullien, Nander Wever, Rolf Weingartner, and Ole Roessler

Data sets

DATASET: In situ measurements of meltwater flow through snow and firn in the accumulation zone of the SW Greenland Ice Sheet Nicole Clerx, Horst Machguth, Andrew Tedstone, Nicolas Jullien, Nander Wever, Rolf Weingartner, and Ole Roessler https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7119818

Model code and software

In situ measurements of meltwater flow through snow and firn in the accumulation zone of the SW Greenland Ice Sheet Nicole Clerx, Horst Machguth, Andrew Tedstone, Nicolas Jullien, Nander Wever, Rolf Weingartner, and Ole Roessler https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7119818

Short summary

Meltwater runoff is one of the main contributors to mass loss on the Greenland Ice Sheet that influences global sea level rise. However, it remains unclear where meltwater runs off and what processes cause this. We measured the velocity of meltwater flow through snow on the ice sheet, which ranged from 0.17–12.8 m h⁻¹ for vertical percolation and from 1.3–15.1 m h⁻¹ for lateral flow. This is an important step towards understanding where, when and why meltwater runoff occurs on the ice sheet.