TY - JOUR AU - Gagliardini O, Durand G. PY - 2010// TI - Coupling of ice-shelf melting and buttressing is a key process in ice-sheets dynamics JO - Geophysical Research Letters SP - 1 EP - 5 VL - 37 IS - 14 PB - American Geophysical Union KW - glaciology KW - meteorology climatology KW - N2 - Increase in ice-shelf melting is generally presumed to have triggered recent coastal ice-sheet thinning. Using a full-Stokes finite element model which includes a proper description of the grounding line dynamics, we investigate the impact of melting below ice shelves. We argue that the influence of ice-shelf melting on the ice-sheet dynamics induces a complex response, and the first naive view that melting inevitably leads to loss of grounded ice is erroneous. We demonstrate that melting acts directly on the magnitude of the buttressing force by modifying both the area experiencing lateral resistance and the ice-shelf velocity, indicating that the decrease of back stress imposed by the ice-shelf is the prevailing cause of inland dynamical thinning. We further show that feedback from melting and buttressing forces can lead to nontrivial results, as an increase in the average melt rate may lead to inland ice thickening and grounding line advance. Citation: Gagliardini, O., G. Durand, T. Zwinger, R. C. A. Hindmarsh, and E. Le Meur (2010), Coupling of ice-shelf melting and buttressing is a key process in ice-sheets dynamics, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L14501, doi:10.1029/2010GL043334. SN - 0094-8276 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010GL043334 N1 - exported from refbase (http://publi.ipev.fr/polar_references/show.php?record=2583), last updated on Sun, 28 Jul 2024 07:28:37 +0200 ID - GagliardiniO2010 ER -