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Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

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Full-Text Articles in Glaciology

Kinematics Of The Exceptionally-Short Surge Cycles Of Sít’ Kusá (Turner Glacier), Alaska, From 1983 To 2013, Andrew Nolan, William Kochtitzky, Ellyn M. Enderlin, Robert Mcnabb, Karl J. Kreutz Aug 2021

Kinematics Of The Exceptionally-Short Surge Cycles Of Sít’ Kusá (Turner Glacier), Alaska, From 1983 To 2013, Andrew Nolan, William Kochtitzky, Ellyn M. Enderlin, Robert Mcnabb, Karl J. Kreutz

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Glacier surges are periodic episodes of mass redistribution characterized by dramatic increases in ice flow velocity and, sometimes, terminus advance. We use optical satellite imagery to document five previously unexamined surge events of Sít’ Kusá (Turner Glacier) in the St. Elias Mountains of Alaska from 1983 to 2013. Surge events had an average recurrence interval of ~5 years, making it the shortest known regular recurrence interval in the world. Surge events appear to initiate in the winter, with speeds reaching up to ~25 m d−1. The surges propagate down-glacier over ~2 years, resulting in maximum thinning of ~100 …


Sharp Contrasts In Observed And Modeled Crevasse Patterns At Greenland’S Marine Terminating Glaciers, Ellyn M. Enderlin, Timothy C. Bartholomaus Nov 2020

Sharp Contrasts In Observed And Modeled Crevasse Patterns At Greenland’S Marine Terminating Glaciers, Ellyn M. Enderlin, Timothy C. Bartholomaus

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Crevasses are affected by and affect both the stresses and the surface mass balance of glaciers. These effects are brought on through potentially important controls on meltwater routing, glacier viscosity, and iceberg calving, yet there are few direct observations of crevasse sizes and locations to inform our understanding of these interactions. Here we extract depth estimates for the visible portion of crevasses from high-resolution surface elevation observations for 52 644 crevasses from 19 Greenland glaciers. We then compare our observed depths with those calculated using two popular models that assume crevasse depths are functions of local stresses: the Nye and …