Quantifying temperature-sliding inconsistency in thermomechanical coupling: a comparative analysis  of geothermal heat flux datasets at Totten Glacier

Wang, Junshun; Zhao, Liyun; Wolovick, Michael; Moore, John C.

doi:10.5194/tc-20-835-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-835-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-835-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

Research article

|

02 Feb 2026

Research article |

| 02 Feb 2026

Quantifying temperature-sliding inconsistency in thermomechanical coupling: a comparative analysis of geothermal heat flux datasets at Totten Glacier

Junshun Wang, Liyun Zhao, Michael Wolovick, and John C. Moore

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-835-2026-supplement

Data sets

Antarctic dataset in NetCDF format Anne M. Le Brocq et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.734145

Antarctic geothermal heat flux distribution and estimated Curie Depths, links to gridded files, PA Yasmina M. Martos https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.882503

MEaSUREs BedMachine Antarctica Mathieu Morlighem https://doi.org/10.5067/E1QL9HFQ7A8M

MEaSUREs Antarctic Boundaries for IPY 2007-2009 from Satellite Radar Jeremie Mouginot et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/AXE4121732AD

MEaSUREs InSAR-Based Antarctica Ice Velocity Map Eric Rignot et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/D7GK8F5J8M8R

Near-surface air temperature data of Antarctic ice sheet (2001–2018) Xueying Zhang https://doi.org/10.11888/Atmos.tpdc.272234

Totten Glacier Thermal Structure Liyun Zhao et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825456

Short summary

Ice sheet models adjust basal sliding with assumed ice temperatures so that surface speeds match observations, leading to inconsistencies between basal thermal state and sliding fields. We propose a method to quantify these inconsistencies without requiring any subglacial measurements. This method is applied to ice sheet model of Totten Glacier using eight geothermal heat flux (GHF) datasets, yielding rankings of GHF that align with those based on radar data.