Meeting 10 Synopsis: October 30, 2013

Subaqueous melting of tidewater glaciers

These papers discussed the primary mechanisms for melting a glacier that terminates on water rather than on land. Although calving seemed to be a major player in melting glaciers, subaqueous flow was considered the primary mechanism for inducing the melting of the glaciers. The subaqueous flow was considerably larger in the summertime than in the wintertime. was mentioned in class that the issue of icebergs that have separated from the original glacier may also play an important role.

We discussed the different ways that plumes interact with the glaciers. Some may reach a neutral buoyancy and some may reach the surface of the glacier. The colors used in Figure S3 were also discussed. The blue and green colors actually indicate that heat is moving away from the ice. This may be a problem if the warmer water did not actually lose all of its heat when making contact with the glacier.

For the 3-D paper, the main issue is deciding whether or not we agree with their heat rate transfer coefficient. This depends on the bounding layer where viscosity matters, but this is basically too complicated to try to calculate. The values used in this paper were from a Jenkins paper. Engineering toolbox was suggested as a way to check or find heat transfer coefficient values. We also came to agree that a one channel assumption was an appropriate one. We think that geophysical techniques will be the next best step for further understanding subaqueous flow for tidal glaciers.