Brief Communication: Sudden drainage of a subglacial lake beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet

Howat, I. M.; Porter, C.; Noh, M. J.; Smith, B. E.; Jeong, S.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-103-2015

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-103-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-103-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

Brief communication

|

15 Jan 2015

Brief communication |

| 15 Jan 2015

Brief Communication: Sudden drainage of a subglacial lake beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet

I. M. Howat, C. Porter, M. J. Noh, B. E. Smith, and S. Jeong

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Final revised paper (published on 15 Jan 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 16 Oct 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC C2081: 'citation correction', Julie Miller, 16 Oct 2014
- AC C2082: 'no, it's correct...', Ian M. Howat, 16 Oct 2014
  - SC C2083: 'citation correction.', Julie Miller, 16 Oct 2014
RC C2201: 'Greenland subglacial lake drainage', Garry K. C. Clarke, 01 Nov 2014
- AC C2672: 'Response', Ian M. Howat, 17 Dec 2014
RC C2418: 'Review of Howat et al.: drainage of a greenland subglacial lake', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 Nov 2014
- AC C2675: 'Response', Ian M. Howat, 17 Dec 2014
SC C2619: 'add a map showing where in Greenland the feature is', Jonathan L. Bamber, 10 Dec 2014
- AC C2679: 'Response', Ian M. Howat, 17 Dec 2014

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Ian M. Howat on behalf of the Authors (17 Dec 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (20 Dec 2014) by Olivier Gagliardini

AR by Ian M. Howat on behalf of the Authors (20 Dec 2014) Manuscript

Short summary

In the summer of 2011, a large crater appeared in the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet. It formed when a subglacial lake, equivalent to 10,000 swimming pools, catastrophically drained in less than 14 days. This is the first direct evidence that surface meltwater that drains through cracks to the bed of the ice sheet can build up in subglacial lakes over long periods of time. The sudden drainage may have been due to more surface melting and an increase in meltwater reaching the bed.