The bedrock topography of Starbuck Glacier, Antarctic Peninsula, as determined by radio-echo soundings and flow modeling

Farinotti, Daniel; King, Edward C.; Albrecht, Anika; Huss, Matthias; Gudmundsson, G. Hilmar

doi:10.3189/2014AoG67A025

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Journal article

The bedrock topography of Starbuck Glacier, Antarctic Peninsula, as determined by radio-echo soundings and flow modeling

Farinotti, Daniel Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW), ETH, Zürich, Switzerland - German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), Potsdam, Germany
King, Edward C. British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge, UK
Albrecht, Anika University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Huss, Matthias 5Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Gudmundsson, G. Hilmar British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge, UK - State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China

01.07.2014

Published in:

Annals of Glaciology. - 2014, vol. 55, no. 67, p. 22–28

English A glacier-wide ice-thickness distribution and bedrock topography is presented for Starbuck Glacier, Antarctic Peninsula. The results are based on 90 km of ground-based radio-echo sounding lines collected during the 2012/13 field season. Cross-validation with ice-thickness measurements provided by NASA's IceBridge project reveals excellent agreement. Glacier-wide estimates are derived using a model that calculates distributed ice thickness, calibrated with the radio-echo soundings. Additional constraints are obtained from in situ ice flow-speed measurements and the surface topography. The results indicate a reverse-sloped bed extending from a riegel occurring ∼5 km upstream of the current grounding line. The deepest parts of the glacier are as much as 500 m below sea level. The calculated total volume of 80.7 ± 7.2 km3 corresponds to an average ice thickness of 312 ± 30 m.

Faculty

Faculté des sciences et de médecine

Department

Département de Géosciences

Language