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Seasonal evolution of supraglacial lakes on an East Antarctic outlet glacier

Langley, E.S.; Leeson, A.A.; Stokes, C.R.; Jamieson, S.S.R.

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Authors

E.S. Langley

A.A. Leeson



Abstract

Supraglacial lakes are known to influence ice melt and ice flow on the Greenland ice sheet and potentially cause ice shelf disintegration on the Antarctic Peninsula. In East Antarctica, however, our understanding of their behavior and impact is more limited. Using >150 optical satellite images and meteorological records from 2000 to 2013, we provide the first multiyear analysis of lake evolution on Langhovde Glacier, Dronning Maud Land (69°11′S, 39°32′E). We mapped 7990 lakes and 855 surface channels up to 18.1 km inland (~670 m above sea level) from the grounding line and document three pathways of lake demise: (i) refreezing, (ii) drainage to the englacial/subglacial environment (on the floating ice), and (iii) overflow into surface channels (on both the floating and grounded ice). The parallels between these mechanisms, and those observed on Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula, suggest that lakes may similarly affect rates and patterns of ice melt, ice flow, and ice shelf disintegration in East Antarctica.

Citation

Langley, E., Leeson, A., Stokes, C., & Jamieson, S. (2016). Seasonal evolution of supraglacial lakes on an East Antarctic outlet glacier. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(16), 8563-8571. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016gl069511

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 2, 2016
Online Publication Date Aug 24, 2016
Publication Date Aug 28, 2016
Deposit Date Aug 11, 2016
Publicly Available Date Aug 31, 2016
Journal Geophysical Research Letters
Print ISSN 0094-8276
Electronic ISSN 1944-8007
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 43
Issue 16
Pages 8563-8571
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/2016gl069511

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (1.2 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2016. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.








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