Status: this preprint has been retracted. Please read the editorial note.
Constraints on glacier flow from temperature-depth profiles in the ice. Application to EPICA Dome C.
Ignacio Hermoso de Mendoza,Jean-Claude Mareschal,and Hugo Beltrami
Abstract. A one-dimensional (1-D) ice flow and heat conduction model is used to calculate the temperature and heat flux profiles in the ice and to constrain the parameters characterizing the ice flow and the thermal boundary conditions at the Dome C drilling site in East Antarctica. We use the reconstructions of ice accumulation, glacier height and air surface temperature histories as boundary conditions to calculate the ice temperature profile. The temperature profile also depends on a set of poorly known parameters, the ice velocity profile and magnitude, basal heat flux, and air-ice surfaces temperature coupling. We use Monte Carlo methods to search the parameters' space of the model, compare the model output with the temperature data, and find probability distributions for the unknown parameters. We could not determine the sliding ratio because it has no effect on the thermal profile, but we could constrain the flux function parameter p that determines the velocity profile. We determined the basal heat flux qb = 49.0 ± 2.7 (2σ)m W m−2, almost equal to the apparent value. We found an ice surface velocity of vsur = 2.6 ± 1.9 (2σ)m y−1 and an air-ice temperature coupling of 0.8 ± 1.0(2σ)K. Our study confirms that the heat flux is low and does not destabilize the ice sheet in east Antarctica.
This preprint has been retracted.
Received: 11 Nov 2016 – Discussion started: 30 Nov 2016
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We simulated ice flow and heat conduction at the Dome C site in Antarctica with a 1D numerical model, using as inputs past conditions at the site over the past 800Ky. Several model parameters (basal heat flux, flux function parameter, ice surface velocity and air-ice temperature offset) are set as free parameters whose values yield different temperature profiles that we can compare to that at Dome C. Using this criteria, we estimate these free parameters through Montecarlo methods.
We simulated ice flow and heat conduction at the Dome C site in Antarctica with a 1D numerical...
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