Greenland Ice Sheet surface melt:A review  

作　　者：Kang Yang ManChun Li 

机构地区：[1]Department of Geographic Information Science,Nanjing University [2]Department of Geography,University of California,Los Angeles

出　　处：《Research in Cold and Arid Regions》2014年第2期99-106,共8页寒旱区科学（英文版）

基　　金：supported by the Scholarship Award for Excellent Doctoral Student granted by Ministry of Education and the Graduate Education Innovation Project of Jiangsu Province(CXLX12-0039)

摘　　要：Surface melt has great impacts on the Greenland Ice Sheet （GrlS） mass balance and thereby has become the focus of significant GrlS research in recent years. The production, transport, and release processes of surface meltwater are the keys to understanding the poten- tial impacts of the GrlS surface melt. These hydrological processes can elucidate the following scientific questions： How much melt- water is produced atop the GrlS？ What are the characteristics of the meltwater-formed supraglacial hydrological system？ How does the meltwater influence the GrlS motion？ The GrlS supraglacial hydrology has a number of key roles and yet continues to be poorly understood or documented. This paper summarizes the current understanding of the GrlS surface melt, emphasizing the three essential supraglacial hydrological processes： （1） meltwater production： surface melt modeling is an important approach to acquire surface melt information, and areas, depths, and volumes of supraglacial lakes extracted from remotely sensed imagery can also provide surface melt information; （2） meltwater transport： the spatial distributions of supraglacial lakes, supraglacial sarams, moulins, and crevasses demonstrate the characteristics of the supraglacial hydrological system, revealing the meltwater transport process; and （3） meltwater release： the release of meltwater into the englacial and the subglacial ice sheet has important but undetermined impacts on the GrlS motion. The correlation between surface runoff and the GrlS motion speed is employed to understand these influences.Surface melt has great impacts on the Greenland Ice Sheet （GrlS） mass balance and thereby has become the focus of significant GrlS research in recent years. The production, transport, and release processes of surface meltwater are the keys to understanding the poten- tial impacts of the GrlS surface melt. These hydrological processes can elucidate the following scientific questions： How much melt- water is produced atop the GrlS？ What are the characteristics of the meltwater-formed supraglacial hydrological system？ How does the meltwater influence the GrlS motion？ The GrlS supraglacial hydrology has a number of key roles and yet continues to be poorly understood or documented. This paper summarizes the current understanding of the GrlS surface melt, emphasizing the three essential supraglacial hydrological processes： （1） meltwater production： surface melt modeling is an important approach to acquire surface melt information, and areas, depths, and volumes of supraglacial lakes extracted from remotely sensed imagery can also provide surface melt information; （2） meltwater transport： the spatial distributions of supraglacial lakes, supraglacial sarams, moulins, and crevasses demonstrate the characteristics of the supraglacial hydrological system, revealing the meltwater transport process; and （3） meltwater release： the release of meltwater into the englacial and the subglacial ice sheet has important but undetermined impacts on the GrlS motion. The correlation between surface runoff and the GrlS motion speed is employed to understand these influences.

关 键 词：ice sheet surface melt mass balance supragiacial lake supraglacial stream GREENLAND 

分 类 号：P343.6[天文地球—水文科学]