The increase in iceberg discharge into the polar oceans highlights the importance of understanding how quickly icebergs are deteriorating and where the resulting freshwater injection is occurring. Recent advances in quantifying iceberg deterioration through combinations of modeling, remote sensing and direct in situ measurements have successfully calculated overall ablation rates, and surface and sidewall ablation; however, in situ measurements of basal melt rates have been difficult to obtain. Radar has successfully measured iceberg thickness, but repeat measurements, which would capture a change in iceberg thickness with time, have not yet been collected. Here we test the applicability of using an on-iceberg autonomous phase-sensitive radar (ApRES) to quantify basal ablation rates of a large (~800 m long) non-tabular Arctic iceberg during an intensive 2019 summer field campaign in Sermilik Fjord, southeast Greenland. We find that ApRES can be used to measure basal ablation even over a short deployment period (10 d), and also provide a lower bound on sidewall melt. This study fills a critical gap in iceberg research and pushes the limits of field instrumentation.

The importance of glacier sliding has motivated a rich literature describing the thermomechanical interactions between ice, liquid water and bed materials. Early recognition of the gradient in melting temperature across small bed obstacles led to focused studies of regelation. An appreciation for the limits on ice deformation rates downstream of larger obstacles highlighted a role for cavitation, which has subsequently gained prominence in descriptions of subglacial drainage. Here, we show that the changes in melting temperature that accompany changes in normal stress along a sliding ice interface near cavities and other macroscopic drainage elements cause appreciable supercooling and basal mass exchange. This provides the basis of a novel formation mechanism for widely observed laminated debris-rich basal ice layers.

The spatial distribution of geothermal heat flux (GHF) under ice sheets is largely unknown. Nonetheless, it is an important boundary condition in ice-sheet models, and suggested to control part of the complex surface velocity patterns observed in some regions. Here we investigate the effect of including subglacial hydrology when modelling ice streams with elevated GHF. We use an idealised ice stream geometry and a thermomechanical ice flow model coupled to subglacial hydrology in the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM). Our results show that the dynamic response of the ice stream to elevated GHF is greatly enhanced when including the interactive subglacial hydrology. On the other hand, the impact of GHF on ice temperature is reduced when subglacial hydrology is included. In conclusion, the sensitivity of ice stream dynamics to GHF is likely to be underestimated in studies neglecting subglacial hydrology.

The spatial distribution of basal water critically impacts the evolution of ice sheets. Current estimates of basal water distribution beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) contain large uncertainties due to poorly constrained boundary conditions, primarily from geothermal heat flux (GHF). The existing GHF models often contradict each other and implementing them in numerical ice-sheet models cannot reproduce the measured temperatures at ice core locations. Here we utilize two datasets of radar-detected basal water in Greenland to constrain the GHF at regions with a thawed bed. Using the three-dimensional ice-sheet model SICOPOLIS, we iteratively adjust the GHF to find the minimum GHF required to reach the bed to the pressure melting point, GHFpmp, at locations of radar-detected basal water. We identify parts of the central-east, south and northwest Greenland with significantly high GHFpmp. Conversely, we find that the majority of low-elevation regions of west Greenland and parts of northeast have very low GHFpmp. We compare the estimated constraints with the available GHF models for Greenland and show that GHF models often do not honor the estimated constraints. Our results highlight the need for community effort to reconcile the discrepancies between radar data, GHF models, and ice core information.

Glacier sliding over small obstacles relies on melting on their upstream sides and refreezing downstream. Previous treatments have appealed to ‘pressure melting’ as the cause of the spatial variations in melting temperature that drive this regelation process. However, we show that typical liquid pressure variations across small obstacles are negligible and therefore variations in ice pressure closely approximate variations in effective stress. For a given change in effective stress, the equilibrium melting temperature changes by an order of magnitude more than when the pressure of ice and liquid both change by an equal amount. In consequence, the temperature gradients that drive heat flow across small obstacles are larger than previously recognized and the rate of regelation is faster. Under typical conditions, the transition wavelength at which ice deformation and regelation contribute equally is of m-scale, several times longer than previous predictions, which have been reported to underestimate field inferences.

The thermal state at the bed of a large ice sheet is a critical boundary condition governing its future evolution. Radar surveys provide an opportunity for direct but remote observation of the ice-sheet bed, and therefore offer a means of constraining numerical ice-sheet models at the ice–bed interface. Here we have processed results of radar surveys of the Greenland Ice Sheet undertaken by the Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) between 1999 and 2003, to explore this opportunity. We consider the robustness of the measurements in the context of uncertain dielectric losses in the ice sheet, concluding that the observed radar signal characteristics reflect the character of the bed itself rather than that of uncertain englacial absorption. However, the identification of thaw is restricted to areas where subglacial water has sufficient depth to influence the radar reflection. We derive a map of inferred areas of subglacial thaw, and compare our results with other studies predicting regions with temperate bed. We show that in many areas the radar inferences of ponded water lie within areas predicted to be thawed by modelling and radiostratigraphy. There is clear disagreement in certain areas, suggesting the presence of high geothermal flux anomalies.