An attempt to capture diverse tidewater glacier calving styles within a single framework

The complexity of the processes and the difficulty of collecting observations mean that the treatment of the ice-ocean boundary remains one of the most challenging aspects of running models of the Greenland ice sheet. With geometry, climate forcing, ice properties and feedbacks between these factors all playing a role, tidewater glaciers display a range of calving styles that are hard to capture within the simple parameterisations that are necessary for large-scale ice sheet modeling.

Here we attempt to place some dominant calving styles within a single framework. We study submarine melt undercut-driven calving using linear elastic fracture mechanics within 2D elastic simulations, together with analytical approaches to calving driven by the intersection of basal and surface crevasses and to ice cliff failure. Taken together, these approaches give a prediction of calving style as a function of the calving front ice thickness, ocean depth and submarine melt undercut length, or equivalently as a function of the frontal tension, bending moment and shear. We discuss possible implementations in ice sheet models.