IEDA
Project Information
Collaborative Research: Elevation Change Anomalies in West Antarctica and Dynamics of Subglacial Water Transport Beneath Ice Streams and their Tributaries
Description/Abstract
Tulaczyk/0636970

This award supports a project to study elevation change anomalies (henceforth ECAs), which are oval-shaped, 5-to-10 km areas observed in remote sensing images in several locations within the Ross Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Within these anomalies, surface elevation changes at rates of up to ~1 to ~2 cm per day, significantly faster than in surrounding regions. These anomalies are thought to result from filling and draining of multi-kilometer-scale subglacial water pockets. The intellectual merit of this project is that these ECA's represent an unprecedented window into the elusive world of water drainage dynamics beneath the modern Antarctic ice sheet. Although subglacial water fluxes are small compared to normal terrestrial conditions, they play an important role in controlling fast ice streaming and, potentially, stability of the ice sheet. The dearth of observational constraints on sub-ice sheet water dynamics represents one of the most important limitations on progress in quantitative modeling of ice streams and ice sheets. Such models are necessary to assess future ice sheet mass balance and to reconstruct the response of ice sheets to past climate changes. The dynamic sub-ice sheet water transport indicated by the ECAs may have also implications for studies of subglacial lakes and other subglacial environments, which may harbor life adapted to such extreme conditions. The broader impacts of this project are that it will provide advanced training opportunities to one postdoctoral fellow (UW), two female doctoral students (UCSC), who will enhance diversity in polar sciences, and at least three undergraduate students (UCSC). Project output will be relevant to broad scientific and societal interests, such as the future global sea level changes and the response of Polar Regions to climate changes. Douglas Fox, a freelance science journalist, is interested in joining the first field season to write feature articles to popular science magazines and promote the exposure of this project, and Antarctic Science in general, to mass media.
Personnel
Person Role
Smith, Ben Investigator
Joughin, Ian Investigator
Tulaczyk, Slawek Investigator and contact
SMITH, BENJAMIN Investigator
Fricker, Helen Technical Contact
Funding
Antarctic Glaciology Award # 0636970
Antarctic Glaciology Award # 0636719
AMD - DIF Record(s)
636719
NSIDC-0523_1
tulaczyk0636970
Data Management Plan
None in the Database
Product Level:
Not provided
Datasets
Repository Title (link) Format(s) Status
USAP-DC Antarctic Active Subglacial Lake Inventory from ICESat Altimetry CSV; kml exists
Publications
  1. Walter, J. I., Svetlizky, I., Fineberg, J., Brodsky, E. E., Tulaczyk, S., Grace Barcheck, C., & Carter, S. P. (2015). Rupture speed dependence on initial stress profiles: Insights from glacier and laboratory stick-slip. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 411, 112–120. (doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2014.11.025)
  2. Barcheck, G., Brodsky, E. E., Fulton, P. M., King, M. A., Siegfried, M. R., & Tulaczyk, S. (2021). Migratory earthquake precursors are dominant on an ice stream fault. Science Advances, 7(6), eabd0105. (doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd0105)
  3. Smith, B., Fricker, H., Joughin, I., & Tulaczyk, S. (2009). An inventory of active subglacial lakes in Antarctica detected by ICESat (2003–2008). Journal of Glaciology, 55(192), 573-595 (doi:10.3189/002214309789470879)
  4. Siegfried, M. R., Fricker, H. A., Carter, S. P., & Tulaczyk, S. (2016). Episodic ice velocity fluctuations triggered by a subglacial flood in West Antarctica. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(6), 2640–2648. (doi:10.1002/2016gl067758)
  5. Siegfried, M. R., Medley, B., Larson, K. M., Fricker, H. A., & Tulaczyk, S. (2017). Snow accumulation variability on a West Antarctic ice stream observed with GPS reflectometry, 2007–2017. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(15), 7808–7816. (doi:10.1002/2017gl074039)
  6. Damsgaard, A., Egholm, D. L., Beem, L. H., Tulaczyk, S., Larsen, N. K., Piotrowski, J. A., & Siegfried, M. R. (2016). Ice flow dynamics forced by water pressure variations in subglacial granular beds. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(23). (doi:10.1002/2016gl071579)
Platforms and Instruments

This project has been viewed 15 times since May 2019 (based on unique date-IP combinations)