Glacier-Ocean Interactions in the Arctic : Contemporary calving and frontal melt from field observations, remote sensing, and numerical modelling

Globally, glaciers are losing mass as a result of the changing climate, with this mass loss having a considerable societal impact through rising sea levels. Glaciers which terminate in the oceans are particularly vulnerable to changing external conditions as a result of high sensitivity at their marine margins. Both changing meteorological patterns as well as changing ocean heat content and transport have been previously identified as potential drivers for contemporary rapid glacier retreat and acceleration. However, uncertainties remain and provide motivation for studies which improve our process understanding. Here, we use a combination of field data, remotely sensed data, and targeted numerical modelling experiments to investigate marine terminating glacier response to external changes. This is done in order to address uncertainties around mass loss at the inaccessible glacier-ocean interface. In particular, focus is paid to the processes of submarine melt and calving, together referred to as frontal ablation. Submarine melt is the melting of glacier termini by warm ocean waters below the waterline, whilst calving is the breaking off of icebergs from glacier termini. The two processes are interlinked, with submarine melting undercutting the glacier terminus and contributing to calving, whilst calving events can expose larger areas of the glacier margin to submarine melt. To look for relationships between frontal ablation and external forcings, four glacier-fjord systems were studied to varying extents; two grounded glaciers in Svalbard (Kronebreen and Tunabreen) and two glaciers with floating ice tongues in Greenland (Ryder glacier and Petermann glacier). Both submarine melt and calving were examined at various different scales, both temporally and spatially. Specifically, analysis was carried out from the scale of individual calving events up to decadal long time series of glacier margin change. Much of the data used focused on specific glaciological variables such as satellite-derived velocities, margin positions, model simulations, and time-lapse photography of calving events. However, as glaciers and their adjacent fjord or ocean environments impact on each other, data such as water temperatures were also collected from glacier proximal fjord environments. The results from both the observational data and model experiments suggest that ocean temperatures are of great importance for the frontal ablation of glaciers in the Arctic, but that the relationship is complex. Heterogeneous glacier response to external forcings highlights how site specific factors such as bathymetry and fjord geometry can add an additional layer of complexity and make it challenging to scale up results from one glacier to an entire region. However, there are some strong indications that it is the presence of warm air temperatures in conjunction with warm ocean temperatures that is most important for driving frontal ablation - highlighting the need to situate glacier behaviour within a wider environmental context