Reconciling ice dynamics and bed topography with a versatile and fast ice thickness inversion

Frank, Thomas; van Pelt, Ward J. J.; Kohler, Jack

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4021-2023

Articles | Volume 17, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4021-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4021-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 9

Research article

|

18 Sep 2023

Research article |

| 18 Sep 2023

Reconciling ice dynamics and bed topography with a versatile and fast ice thickness inversion

Thomas Frank, Ward J. J. van Pelt, and Jack Kohler

Data sets

Subglacial topography, ice thickness, and bathymetry of Kongsfjorden, northwestern Svalbard Katrin Lindbäck, Jack Kohler, Rickard Pettersson, Christopher Nuth, Kirsty Langley, Alexandra Messerli, Dorothée Vallot, Kenichi Matsuoka, and Ola Brandt https://doi.org/10.21334/npolar.2017.702ca4a7

Ice velocity and thickness of the world’s glaciers R. Millan, J. Mouginot, A. Rabatel, and M. Morlighem https://doi.org/10.6096/1007

Short summary

Since the ice thickness of most glaciers worldwide is unknown, and since it is not feasible to visit every glacier and observe their thickness directly, inverse modelling techniques are needed that can calculate ice thickness from abundant surface observations. Here, we present a new method for doing that. Our methodology relies on modelling the rate of surface elevation change for a given glacier, compare this with observations of the same quantity and change the bed until the two are in line.