HR: 13:55h
AN: C43A-02    [Abstracts]
TI: How Do We Actually Solve the Equations for Ice Shelves and Streams?
AU: * Bueler, E
EM: ffelb@uaf.edu
AF: Dept of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775, United States
AU: Brown, J
EM: jed@59a2.org
AF: Glaciology Group at VAW, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
AU: Lingle, C
EM: clingle@gi.alaska.edu
AF: Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775, United States
AB: The standard shallow approximation of the balance of momentum in ice shelves and ice streams is a pair of equations which determine the horizontal velocity of the ice. They are supposed to determine the velocity given the ice thickness, bed topography, the temperature within the ice, and boundary conditions (where the fast-flowing ice meets ice ridges and at the calving front, for instance). How is one supposed to solve these equations efficiently and at the high resolution necessary to model narrow ice streams and the parts of ice shelves with complex geometry? How does one know that the solution method is accurate? Can one use modern numerical tools to solve these equations? This talk will address, and even attempt an answer to, these questions. We recognize that the ice shelf/stream equations are a lower-dimensional model for the full three-dimensional Stokes problem for ice flow, and conclusions about the shelf/stream case may have broader consequences.
DE: 0728 Ice shelves
DE: 0730 Ice streams
DE: 0774 Dynamics
DE: 0798 Modeling
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting