The Greenland Ice Sheet: flow, temperature and geometry in response to various climate scenarios
by R. Calov and K. Hutter
Steady state and time dependent computations are performed for the Greenland Ice Sheet using an ice sheet model on the basis of the 3-D shallow ice equations of a viscous heat-conducting incompressible fluid. The interaction with the solid earth is through a heat-conducting homogeneous isotropic rigid solid subjected to the geothermal heat. The climate driving is effected through a prescribed atmospheric surface temperature and accumulation-rate function. Computations are performed for the ice-thickness distribution to steady driving conditions when external and internal parameters are varied. It is shown that the sliding coefficient and the amplitude of the annual temperature variation are particularly critical. Finally, the evolution of the basal temperature distribution at Dye3, Summit and Camp Century through idealized scenarios of the ice age(s) is computed; these computations show that the basal temperature regime depends critically on the thermal inertia of the bedrock and the magnitude of the ice fluidity.
