Widespread distribution of supraglacial lakes around the margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet

被引：76

作者：

Stokes, Chris R. ^{[1
]}

Sanderson, Jack E. ^{[1
]}

Miles, Bertie W. J. ^{[1
]}

Jamieson, Stewart S. R. ^{[1
]}

Leeson, Amber A. ^{[2
]}

机构：

[1] Univ Durham, Dept Geog, Durham DH1 3LE, England

[2] Univ Lancaster, Lancaster Environm Ctr, Data Sci Inst, Lancaster LA1 4YW, England

来源：

SCIENTIFIC REPORTS | 2019年 / 9卷 / 1期

基金：

英国自然环境研究理事会;

关键词：

LONGITUDINAL SURFACE-STRUCTURES; WEST GREENLAND; SEA-ICE; SEASONAL EVOLUTION; MODIS IMAGERY; MASS-BALANCE; LANDSAT; 8; SHELF; DRAINAGE; CLIMATE;

D O I：

10.1038/s41598-019-50343-5

中图分类号：

O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];

学科分类号：

07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;

摘要：

Supraglacial lakes are important to ice sheet mass balance because their development and drainage has been linked to changes in ice flow velocity and ice shelf disintegration. However, little is known about their distribution on the world's largest ice sheet in East Antarctica. Here, we use similar to 5 million km(2) of high-resolution satellite imagery to identify >65,000 lakes (>1,300 km(2)) that formed around the peak of the melt season in January 2017. Lakes occur in most marginal areas where they typically develop at low elevations (<100 m) and on low surface slopes (<1 degrees), but they can exist 500 km inland and at elevations >1500 m. We find that lakes often cluster a few kilometres down-ice from grounding lines and similar to 60% (>80% by area) develop on ice shelves, including some potentially vulnerable to collapse driven by lake-induced hydro-fracturing. This suggests that parts of the ice sheet may be highly sensitive to climate warming.

引用

页数：14

共 74 条

[1] Quantifying vulnerability of Antarctic ice shelves to hydrofracture using microwave scattering properties [J].