Articles | Volume 19, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2475-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2475-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
08 Jul 2025
Research article |
| 08 Jul 2025
| 08 Jul 2025
Calving driven by horizontal forces in a revised crevasse-depth framework
School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Till J. W. Wagner
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA
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Atlantic Water (AW) delivers heat to glaciers in Greenland, thereby causing melt. We reveal a cooling of the AW entering the world's largest fjord system, Kangertittivaq (East Greenland), after 2018. The cooling is present on the entire Northeast Greenland shelf, driven by cooling in the Nordic Seas. In the fjord, summertime glacier meltwater drives the flow of AW towards the prominent Daugaard Jensen Glacier. The cooling is as strong as the warming of AW at the fjord over the past half century.
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Ice mélange is a mixture of icebergs and sea ice which floats in front of Greenland’s largest glaciers. The presence of ice mélange can have a significant impact on a glacier and its fjord, but the melting of an ice mélange by the ocean is currently poorly understood. Here, we use computer simulations to develop an equation which describes how ice mélange melts under different environmental conditions. This work improves our understanding of the effect of ice mélange on glaciers and the ocean.
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Marine-terminating glaciers can lose mass through frontal ablation, which comprises submarine and surface melting, and iceberg calving. We estimate frontal ablation for 49 marine-terminating glaciers in Greenland by combining existing, satellite derived data and calculating volume change near the glacier front over time. The dataset offers exciting opportunities to study the influence of climate forcings on marine-terminating glaciers in Greenland over multi-decadal timescales.
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Earth's climate is out of energy balance, and this study quantifies how much heat has consequently accumulated over the past decades (ocean: 89 %, land: 6 %, cryosphere: 4 %, atmosphere: 1 %). Since 1971, this accumulated heat reached record values at an increasing pace. The Earth heat inventory provides a comprehensive view on the status and expectation of global warming, and we call for an implementation of this global climate indicator into the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake.
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This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Ocean Science (OS).
Short summary
Short summary
Atlantic Water (AW) delivers heat to glaciers in Greenland, thereby causing melt. We reveal a cooling of the AW entering the world's largest fjord system, Kangertittivaq (East Greenland), after 2018. The cooling is present on the entire Northeast Greenland shelf, driven by cooling in the Nordic Seas. In the fjord, summertime glacier meltwater drives the flow of AW towards the prominent Daugaard Jensen Glacier. The cooling is as strong as the warming of AW at the fjord over the past half century.
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The Cryosphere, 19, 6865–6886, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6865-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6865-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Ice mélange is a mixture of icebergs and sea ice which floats in front of Greenland’s largest glaciers. The presence of ice mélange can have a significant impact on a glacier and its fjord, but the melting of an ice mélange by the ocean is currently poorly understood. Here, we use computer simulations to develop an equation which describes how ice mélange melts under different environmental conditions. This work improves our understanding of the effect of ice mélange on glaciers and the ocean.
Donald A. Slater, Eleanor Johnstone, Martim Mas e Braga, Neil J. Fraser, Tom Cowton, and Mark Inall
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 7475–7500, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-7475-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-7475-2025, 2025
Short summary
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Glacial fjords connect ice sheets to the ocean, controlling heat delivery to glaciers, which impacts ice sheet melt, and freshwater discharge to the ocean, affecting ocean circulation. However, their dynamics are not captured in large-scale climate models. We designed a simplified, computationally efficient model – FjordRPM – that accurately captures key fjord processes. It has direct applications for improving projections of ice melt, ocean circulation, and sea level rise.
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We investigate how waves may erode the front of Antarctica's largest ice shelf, Ross Ice Shelf, and how this results in bending forces that can cause deformation of the near-front shelf and trigger intermediate-scale calving (with icebergs of lengths ∼ 100 m). We compare satellite observations to theoretical estimates of erosion and ice shelf bending in order to better understand the processes underlying this type of calving and its role in the overall ice shelf mass flux.
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The Cryosphere, 18, 911–932, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-911-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-911-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Warming ocean temperatures cause considerable ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet; however climate models are unable to resolve the complex ocean processes within fjords that influence near-glacier ocean temperatures. Here, we use a computer model to test the accuracy of assumptions that allow climate and ice sheet models to project near-glacier ocean temperatures, and thus glacier melt, into the future. We then develop new methods that improve accuracy by accounting for local ocean processes.
Dominik Fahrner, Donald Slater, Aman KC, Claudia Cenedese, David A. Sutherland, Ellyn Enderlin, Femke de Jong, Kristian K. Kjeldsen, Michael Wood, Peter Nienow, Sophie Nowicki, and Till Wagner
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-411, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-411, 2023
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
Marine-terminating glaciers can lose mass through frontal ablation, which comprises submarine and surface melting, and iceberg calving. We estimate frontal ablation for 49 marine-terminating glaciers in Greenland by combining existing, satellite derived data and calculating volume change near the glacier front over time. The dataset offers exciting opportunities to study the influence of climate forcings on marine-terminating glaciers in Greenland over multi-decadal timescales.
Karina von Schuckmann, Audrey Minière, Flora Gues, Francisco José Cuesta-Valero, Gottfried Kirchengast, Susheel Adusumilli, Fiammetta Straneo, Michaël Ablain, Richard P. Allan, Paul M. Barker, Hugo Beltrami, Alejandro Blazquez, Tim Boyer, Lijing Cheng, John Church, Damien Desbruyeres, Han Dolman, Catia M. Domingues, Almudena García-García, Donata Giglio, John E. Gilson, Maximilian Gorfer, Leopold Haimberger, Maria Z. Hakuba, Stefan Hendricks, Shigeki Hosoda, Gregory C. Johnson, Rachel Killick, Brian King, Nicolas Kolodziejczyk, Anton Korosov, Gerhard Krinner, Mikael Kuusela, Felix W. Landerer, Moritz Langer, Thomas Lavergne, Isobel Lawrence, Yuehua Li, John Lyman, Florence Marti, Ben Marzeion, Michael Mayer, Andrew H. MacDougall, Trevor McDougall, Didier Paolo Monselesan, Jan Nitzbon, Inès Otosaka, Jian Peng, Sarah Purkey, Dean Roemmich, Kanako Sato, Katsunari Sato, Abhishek Savita, Axel Schweiger, Andrew Shepherd, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Leon Simons, Donald A. Slater, Thomas Slater, Andrea K. Steiner, Toshio Suga, Tanguy Szekely, Wim Thiery, Mary-Louise Timmermans, Inne Vanderkelen, Susan E. Wjiffels, Tonghua Wu, and Michael Zemp
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1675–1709, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1675-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1675-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Earth's climate is out of energy balance, and this study quantifies how much heat has consequently accumulated over the past decades (ocean: 89 %, land: 6 %, cryosphere: 4 %, atmosphere: 1 %). Since 1971, this accumulated heat reached record values at an increasing pace. The Earth heat inventory provides a comprehensive view on the status and expectation of global warming, and we call for an implementation of this global climate indicator into the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake.
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Short summary
Calving is when icebergs break off glaciers and fall into the ocean. It is an important process determining how ice sheets will respond to changes in climate, but it is currently poorly understood and hard to include in numerical models that are used for sea-level projections. We adapted and extended an existing theory for how this process works, better explaining observations showing that calving style depends on how thick the ice is.
Calving is when icebergs break off glaciers and fall into the ocean. It is an important process...
