Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Observations of Buried Lake Drainage on the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
复制标题
DOI:
10.1029/2020gl087970
复制
发表时间:
2020-08-16
影响因子:
5.2
通讯作者:
Keenan E
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Dunmire D;Lenaerts JTM;Banwell AF;Wever N;Shragge J;Lhermitte S;Drews R;Pattyn F;Hansen JSS;Willis IC;Miller J;Keenan E
Between 1992 and 2017, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) lost ice equivalent to 7.6 ± 3.9 mm of sea level rise. AIS mass loss is mitigated by ice shelves that provide a buttress by regulating ice flow from tributary glaciers. However, ice‐shelf stability is threatened by meltwater ponding, which may initiate, or reactivate preexisting, fractures, currently poorly understood processes. Here, through ground penetrating radar (GPR) analysis over a buried lake in the grounding zone of an East Antarctic ice shelf, we present the first field observations of a lake drainage event in Antarctica via vertical fractures. Concurrent with the lake drainage event, we observe a decrease in surface elevation and an increase in Sentinel‐1 backscatter. Finally, we suggest that fractures that are initiated or reactivated by lake drainage events in a grounding zone will propagate with ice flow onto the ice shelf itself, where they may have implications for its stability. We present the first field observations of the rapid drainage of a buried lake via hydrofracture in Antarctica Lake‐bed fractures are detected from ground penetrating radar prior to drainage and suggest the lake may have been preconditioned to drain Remote sensing analysis of digital elevation model and Sentinel‐1 microwave image differences provide additional lake evolution information