Turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean
The melting of submerged faces of marine-terminating glaciers is a key contributor to the glacial mass budget via direct thermodynamic ablation and the impact of ablation on calving. This study considers the behavior of turbulent plumes of buoyant meltwater in a stratified ocean, generated by meltin...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
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American Geophysical Union
2016
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| _version_ | 1797087955398950912 |
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| author | Wells, A Magorrian, S |
| author_facet | Wells, A Magorrian, S |
| author_sort | Wells, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | The melting of submerged faces of marine-terminating glaciers is a key contributor to the glacial mass budget via direct thermodynamic ablation and the impact of ablation on calving. This study considers the behavior of turbulent plumes of buoyant meltwater in a stratified ocean, generated by melting of either near-vertical calving faces or sloping ice shelves. We build insight by applying a turbulent plume model to describe melting of a locally planar region of ice face in a linearly stratified ocean, in a regime where subglacial discharge is insignificant. The plumes rise until becoming neutrally buoyant, before intruding into the ocean background. For strong stratifications, we obtain leading-order scaling laws for the flow including the height reached by the plume before intrusion, and the melt rate, expressed in terms of the background ocean temperature and salinity stratifications. These scaling laws provide a new perspective for parameterizing glacial melting in response to a piecewise-linear discretization of the ocean stratification. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T02:42:58Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:ab15bc6e-73f9-4f3c-b5b5-93db67f136ba |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T02:42:58Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | American Geophysical Union |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:ab15bc6e-73f9-4f3c-b5b5-93db67f136ba2022-03-27T03:19:29ZTurbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified oceanJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:ab15bc6e-73f9-4f3c-b5b5-93db67f136baSymplectic Elements at OxfordAmerican Geophysical Union2016Wells, AMagorrian, SThe melting of submerged faces of marine-terminating glaciers is a key contributor to the glacial mass budget via direct thermodynamic ablation and the impact of ablation on calving. This study considers the behavior of turbulent plumes of buoyant meltwater in a stratified ocean, generated by melting of either near-vertical calving faces or sloping ice shelves. We build insight by applying a turbulent plume model to describe melting of a locally planar region of ice face in a linearly stratified ocean, in a regime where subglacial discharge is insignificant. The plumes rise until becoming neutrally buoyant, before intruding into the ocean background. For strong stratifications, we obtain leading-order scaling laws for the flow including the height reached by the plume before intrusion, and the melt rate, expressed in terms of the background ocean temperature and salinity stratifications. These scaling laws provide a new perspective for parameterizing glacial melting in response to a piecewise-linear discretization of the ocean stratification. |
| spellingShingle | Wells, A Magorrian, S Turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean |
| title | Turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean |
| title_full | Turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean |
| title_fullStr | Turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean |
| title_full_unstemmed | Turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean |
| title_short | Turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean |
| title_sort | turbulent plumes from a glacier terminus melting in a stratified ocean |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT wellsa turbulentplumesfromaglacierterminusmeltinginastratifiedocean AT magorrians turbulentplumesfromaglacierterminusmeltinginastratifiedocean |