The Cryosphere
The Cryosphere
TC
Articles | Volume 18, issue 9
Articles | Volume 18, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-3991-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-3991-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 18, issue 9
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
05 Sep 2024
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 05 Sep 2024

Ice viscosity governs hydraulic fracture that causes rapid drainage of supraglacial lakes

Tim Hageman, Jessica Mejía, Ravindra Duddu, and Emilio Martínez-Pañeda

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The study is one of the first to model fractures in ice sheets - a fascinating and visually stunning aspect of ice sheets. The model shows that crevasses may transport large volumes of water to the bed of a glacier very quickly and captures the opening of the crevasses due to the water inflow. The impact of surface lakes on the Greenland ice sheet dynamics and mass loss is now better described.
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Short summary
Due to surface melting, meltwater lakes seasonally form on the surface of glaciers. These lakes drive hydrofractures that rapidly transfer water to the base of ice sheets. This paper presents a computational method to capture the complicated hydrofracturing process. Our work reveals that viscous ice rheology has a great influence on the short-term propagation of fractures, enabling fast lake drainage, whereas thermal effects (frictional heating, conduction, and freezing) have little influence.
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