2 results
The variability of tidewater-glacier calving: Origin of event-size and interval distributions
- Anne Chapuis, Tom Tetzlaff
-
- Journal:
- Journal of Glaciology / Volume 60 / Issue 222 / 2014
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 10 July 2017, pp. 622-634
-
- Article
-
- You have access Access
- HTML
- Export citation
-
Calving activity at the termini of tidewater glaciers produces a wide range of iceberg sizes at irregular intervals. We present calving-event data obtained from continuous observations of the termini of two tidewater glaciers on Svalbard, and show that the distributions of event sizes and inter-event intervals can be reproduced by a simple calving model, focusing on the mutual interplay between calving and the destabilization of the glacier terminus. The event-size distributions of both the field and the model data extend over several orders of magnitude and resemble power laws. The distributions of inter-event intervals are broad, but have a less pronounced tail. In the model, the width of the size distribution increases with the calving susceptibility of the glacier terminus, a parameter measuring the effect of calving on the stress in the local neighborhood of the calving region. Inter-event interval distributions, in contrast, are insensitive to the calving susceptibility. Above a critical susceptibility, small perturbations of the glacier result in ongoing self-sustained calving activity. The model suggests that the shape of the event-size distribution of a glacier is informative about its proximity to this transition point. Observations of rapid glacier retreats can be explained by supercritical self-sustained calving.
Contributors
-
- By Ghazi Al-Rawas, Vazken Andréassian, Tianqi Ao, Stacey A. Archfield, Berit Arheimer, András Bárdossy, Trent Biggs, Günter Blöschl, Theresa Blume, Marco Borga, Helge Bormann, Gianluca Botter, Tom Brown, Donald H. Burn, Sean K. Carey, Attilio Castellarin, Francis Chiew, François Colin, Paulin Coulibaly, Armand Crabit, Barry Croke, Siegfried Demuth, Qingyun Duan, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Thomas Dunne, Ying Fan, Xing Fang, Boris Gartsman, Alexander Gelfan, Mikhail Georgievski, Nick van de Giesen, David C. Goodrich, Hoshin V. Gupta, Khaled Haddad, David M. Hannah, H. A. P. Hapuarachchi, Hege Hisdal, Kamila Hlavčová, Markus Hrachowitz, Denis A. Hughes, Günter Humer, Ruud Hurkmans, Vito Iacobellis, Elena Ilyichyova, Hiroshi Ishidaira, Graham Jewitt, Shaofeng Jia, Jeffrey R. Kennedy, Anthony S. Kiem, Robert Kirnbauer, Thomas R. Kjeldsen, Jürgen Komma, Leonid M. Korytny, Charles N. Kroll, George Kuczera, Gregor Laaha, Henny A. J. van Lanen, Hjalmar Laudon, Jens Liebe, Shijun Lin, Göran Lindström, Suxia Liu, Jun Magome, Danny G. Marks, Dominic Mazvimavi, Jeffrey J. McDonnell, Brian L. McGlynn, Kevin J. McGuire, Neil McIntyre, Thomas A. McMahon, Ralf Merz, Robert A. Metcalfe, Alberto Montanari, David Morris, Roger Moussa, Lakshman Nandagiri, Thomas Nester, Taha B. M. J. Ouarda, Ludovic Oudin, Juraj Parajka, Charles S. Pearson, Murray C. Peel, Charles Perrin, John W. Pomeroy, David A. Post, Ataur Rahman, Liliang Ren, Magdalena Rogger, Dan Rosbjerg, José Luis Salinas, Jos Samuel, Eric Sauquet, Hubert H. G. Savenije, Takahiro Sayama, John C. Schaake, Kevin Shook, Murugesu Sivapalan, Jon Olav Skøien, Chris Soulsby, Christopher Spence, R. ‘Sri’ Srikanthan, Tammo S. Steenhuis, Jan Szolgay, Yasuto Tachikawa, Kuniyoshi Takeuchi, Lena M. Tallaksen, Dörthe Tetzlaff, Sally E. Thompson, Elena Toth, Peter A. Troch, Remko Uijlenhoet, Carl L. Unkrich, Alberto Viglione, Neil R. Viney, Richard M. Vogel, Thorsten Wagener, M. Todd Walter, Guoqiang Wang, Markus Weiler, Rolf Weingartner, Erwin Weinmann, Hessel Winsemius, Ross A. Woods, Dawen Yang, Chihiro Yoshimura, Andy Young, Gordon Young, Erwin Zehe, Yongqiang Zhang, Maichun C. Zhou
- Edited by Günter Blöschl, Technische Universität Wien, Austria, Murugesu Sivapalan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Thorsten Wagener, University of Bristol, Alberto Viglione, Technische Universität Wien, Austria, Hubert Savenije, Technische Universiteit Delft, The Netherlands
-
- Book:
- Runoff Prediction in Ungauged Basins
- Published online:
- 05 April 2013
- Print publication:
- 18 April 2013, pp ix-xiv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation