Thermal structure and basal sliding parametrisation at Pine Island Glacier – a 3-D full-Stokes model study

Abstract

Abstract. Pine Island Glacier is one of the fastest changing glaciers in the Antarctic Ice Sheet and therefore in scientific focus. The glacier holds enough ice to raise global sea level significantly (∼0.5 m), when fully melted. The question addressed by numerous modelling studies of the glacier focuses on whether the observed changes are a start for an uncontrolled and accelerating retreat. The movement of the glacier is, in the fast flowing areas, dominated by basal motion. In modelling studies the parametrisation of the basal motion is therefore crucial. Inversion methods are commonly applied to reproduce the complex surface flow structure at Pine Island Glacier, which use information of the observed surface velocity field, to constrain basal sliding. We introduce two different approaches of combining a physical parameter, the basal roughness, with basal sliding parametrisations. This way basal sliding is connected again to its original formulation. We show that the basal roughness is an important and helpful parameter to consider and that many features of the flow structure could be reproduced with these approaches.