HR: 17:15h
AN: C44A-06    [Abstracts]
TI: Investigating Feedbacks Between Basal Sliding, Frictional Melting, and Longitudinal-Stress Transmission
AU: * Price, S F
EM: sprice@ess.washington.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AU: Conway, H
EM: conway@ess.washington.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AU: Waddington, E D
EM: edw@ess.washington.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AU: Bindschadler, R A
EM: Robert.A.Bindschadler@nasa.gov
AF: code 971, Oceans and Ice Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AB: Positive feedbacks between basal sliding, frictional melting, and longitudinal-stress transmission may allow for upstream migration of slow-to-fast sliding transitions, such as those occurring near to and upstream from ice stream onsets. We use a high-order, two-dimensional, thermomechanical flowband model to explore the potential for such feedbacks along an idealized ice stream tributary and onset region. The model, which includes a parameterization for the effects of lateral drag, incorporates basal sliding through shear deformation within a power-law viscous basal layer. The strength of this layer is assumed to decrease as the frictional melting rate increases. For a range of basal-layer rheologies (linear viscous to near plastic), we explore feedbacks between sliding, stress transmission, and melt-generation in order to understand how slow-to-fast sliding transitions may grow and migrate over time.
DE: 0726 Ice sheets
DE: 0730 Ice streams
DE: 0774 Dynamics
DE: 0798 Modeling
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005