Crystal orientation fabric anisotropy causes directional hardening of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream
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Issue Date
2023-05-08Author
Gerber, Tamara Annina
Lilien, David A.
Rathmann, Nicholas Mossor
Franke, Steven
Young, Tun Jan
Valero-Delgado, Fernando
Ershadi, M. Reza
Drews, Reinhard
Zeising, Ole
Humbert, Angelika
Stoll, Nicolas
Weikusat, Ilka
Grinsted, Aslak
Hvidberg, Christine Schøtt
Jansen, Daniela
Miller, Heinrich
Helm, Veit
Steinhage, Daniel
O’Neill, Charles
Paden, John
Gogineni, Siva Prasad
Dahl-Jensen, Dorthe
Eisen, Olaf
Publisher
Nature Research
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
© The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Show full item recordAbstract
The dynamic mass loss of ice sheets constitutes one of the biggest uncertainties in projections of ice-sheet evolution. One central, understudied aspect of ice flow is how the bulk orientation of the crystal orientation fabric translates to the mechanical anisotropy of ice. Here we show the spatial distribution of the depth-averaged horizontal anisotropy and corresponding directional flow-enhancement factors covering a large area of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream onset. Our results are based on airborne and ground-based radar surveys, ice-core observations, and numerical ice-flow modelling. They show a strong spatial variability of the horizontal anisotropy and a rapid crystal reorganisation on the order of hundreds of years coinciding with the ice-stream geometry. Compared to isotropic ice, parts of the ice stream are found to be more than one order of magnitude harder for along-flow extension/compression while the shear margins are potentially softened by a factor of two for horizontal-shear deformation.
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Citation
Gerber, T. A., Lilien, D. A., Rathmann, N. M., Franke, S., Young, T. J., Valero-Delgado, F., Ershadi, M. R., Drews, R., Zeising, O., Humbert, A., Stoll, N., Weikusat, I., Grinsted, A., Hvidberg, C. S., Jansen, D., Miller, H., Helm, V., Steinhage, D., O'Neill, C., Paden, J., … Eisen, O. (2023). Crystal orientation fabric anisotropy causes directional hardening of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream. Nature communications, 14(1), 2653. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38139-8
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