Search

As warming intensifies across the Greenland ice sheet, an increasing number of shallow coring and radar studies are targeting the melt-impacted firn column to investigate meltwater processes. Highly inhomogeneous infiltration and refreezing, however, redistributes mass, distorting age–depth relationships and confounding comparisons between different cores. Here, we utilize a dynamic time warping algorithm for time series alignment to investigate and quantify the heterogeneous impact of melt processes on nine closely spaced (within 50 m) firn core-density profiles. The 10 m cores were collected relatively high in Greenland's percolation zone, where melt alteration is minimal compared to lower elevation. Our analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of dynamic time warping as a tool for assessing heterogeneity between ice core records. We find that the optimal alignment of density profiles in the nine cores requires vertical stretching and compression of individual profiles, ranging from, on average, <1 to ~16% of the core lengths. We identified four depth zones of mass redistribution that appear to coincide with observed ice layers. Further, ~75% of density measurements from each core do not align with an age model-derived density profile that assumes no mass redistribution of meltwater, indicating the pervasive impact of melt processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal field within the firn layer on the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) governs meltwater retention processes, firn densification with surface elevation change, and heat transfer from the surface boundary to deep ice. However, there are few observational data to constrain these processes with only sparse in situ temperature time series that does not extend through the full firn depth. Here, we quantify the thermal structure of Western Greenland's firn column using instrumentation installed in an elevation transect of boreholes extending to 30 and 96 m depth. During the high‐melt summer of 2019, heat gain in the firn layer showed strong elevation dependency, with greater uptake and deeper penetration of heat at lower elevations. The bulk thermal conductivity increased by 15% per 100 m elevation loss due to higher density related to ice layers. Nevertheless, the conductive heat gain remained relatively constant along the transect due to stronger temperature gradients in the near surface firn at higher elevations. The primary driver of heat gain during this high melt summer was latent heat transfer, which increased up to ten‐fold over the transect, growing by 34 MJ m−2 per 100 m elevation loss. The deep‐firn temperature gradient beneath the seasonally active layer doubled over a 270‐m elevation drop across the study transect, increasing heat flux from the firn layer into deep ice at lower elevations. Our in situ firn temperature time series offers observational constraints for modeling studies and insights into the future evolution of the percolation zone in a warmer climate. Plain Language Summary: We address understudied aspects of the temperature field within the firn layer of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Firn is snow that is in transition to glacier ice and its temperature is important to surface elevation changes, refreezing of meltwater, and ice flow properties. Our research deployed instrumentation in boreholes extending to depths of 30 and 96 m across an elevation transect in Western Greenland. During the high‐melt summer of 2019, we observed a pronounced spatial gradient in the thermal structure of the firn layer such that as elevation decreases, there is greater heat uptake, deeper heat penetration, and higher heat flux to deep ice. Despite increasing thermal conductivity with elevation loss, conductive heat gain remained relatively constant along the transect due to stronger and sustained temperature gradients in near‐surface firn at higher elevations. Notably, latent heat transfer from refreezing meltwater was the primary driver of heat gain, increasing up to ten‐fold across the transect with a growth rate of 34 MJ m−2 per 100 m elevation loss. Our in situ firn temperature time series not only provide valuable constraints for modeling studies but also offer insights into the prospective evolution of the percolation zone in a warmer climate. Key Points: Temperatures in boreholes up to 96 m depth in Greenland's percolation zone reveal strong time/space gradients in heat‐transfer mechanismsLatent heat transfer causes deeper and greater summer heat uptake at lower elevations, but conductive heat gain remains nearly constantDeep firn temperature gradients steepen sharply as elevation decreases, causing greater heat flux from the firn layer to the underlying ice [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional assessments of ice elevation change provide insight into the processes controlling an ice sheet's geometric response to climate forcing. In Southwest Greenland's land terminating sector (SWLTS), it is presumed that ice surface elevation changes result solely from changing surface mass balance (SMB). Here we test this assumption by developing a multi-decadal (1985–2017) record of elevation change from digital elevation models (DEMs) and comparing it to regional climate model output and available records of ice speed. The SWLTS thinned by >12 m on average over the full 32-year period, but the change was highly variable in time and space. Thinning was amplified in the central region of the SWLTS, relative to the north and south. During 1985–2007, the north and south regions demonstrated net thickening while the central region thinned. Regional differences in elevation change are inconsistent with SMB anomalies, indicating that enhanced ice flow in the north and south contributed to thickening during this early time interval. While clear validation in the south is prevented by incomplete velocity data, historical surface speeds in the north were elevated. These findings support the interpretation that changing ice flow can influence ice surface elevation in the slow-moving SWLTS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water plays a first-order role in basal sliding of glaciers and ice sheets and is often a key constituent of accelerated glacier motion (1-4). Subglacial water is known to occupy systems of cavities and conduits at the interface between ice and the underlying bed surface, depending upon the history of water input and the characteristics of the substrate (5). Full understanding of the extent and configuration of basal water is lacking, however, because direct observation is difficult. This limits our ability to simulate ice dynamics and the subsequent impacts on sea-level rise realistically. Here we show that the subglacial hydrological system can have a large volume of water occupying basal crevasses that extend upward from the bed into the overlying ice. Radar and seismic imaging combined with in situ borehole measurements collected on Bench Glacier, Alaska, reveal numerous water-filled basal crevasses with highly transmissive connections to the bed. Some crevasses extend many tens of metres above the bed and together they hold a volume of water equivalent to at least a decimetre layer covering the bed. Our results demonstrate that the basal hydrologic system can extend high into the overlying ice mass, where basal crevasses increase water-storage capacity and could potentially modulate basal water pressure. Because basal crevasses can form under commonly observed glaciological conditions, our findings have implications for interpreting and modelling subglacial hydrologic processes and related sliding accelerations of glaciers and ice sheets., Glacier sliding motion is frequently tied to the geometry and flow conditions of water at the ice-bed interface. The geometrical configuration of the basal hydrologic system has largely been inferred [...]

Here, we present a compilation of 85 ice temperature profiles from 79 boreholes from the Greenland Ice Sheet and peripheral ice caps, as well as local ice caps in the Canadian Arctic. Only 25 profiles (32 %) were previously available in open-access data repositories. The remaining 54 profiles (68 %) are being made digitally available here for the first time. These newly available profiles, which are associated with pre-2010 boreholes, have been submitted by community members or digitized from published graphics and/or data tables. All 85 profiles are now made available in both absolute (meters) and normalized (0 to 1 ice thickness) depth scales, and are accompanied by extensive metadata. This metadata includes a transparent description of data provenance. The ice temperature profiles span 70 years, with the earliest profile being from 1950 at Camp VI, West Greenland. To highlight the value of this database in evaluating ice flow simulations, we compare the ice temperature profiles from the Greenland Ice Sheet with an ice flow simulation by the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM). We find a cold bias in modeled near-surface ice temperatures within the ablation area, a warm bias in modeled basal ice temperatures at inland cold-bedded sites, and an apparent underestimation of deformational heating in high-strain settings. These biases provide process-level insight on simulated ice temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of financial institutions in Eastern Europe following effective economic policies is examined.