Dynamics of active subglacial lakes in Recovery Ice Stream.

Recovery Ice Stream has a substantial number of active subglacial lakes that are observed, with satellite altimetry, to grow and drain over multiple years. These lakes store and release water that could be important for controlling the velocity of the ice stream. We apply a subglacial hydrology model to analyze lake growth and drainage characteristics together with the simultaneous development of the ice stream hydrological network. Our outputs produce a good match between modeled lake location and those identified using satellite altimetry for many of the lakes. The modeled subglacial system demonstrates development of pressure waves that initiate at the ice stream neck and transit to within 100 km of the terminus. These waves alter the hydraulic potential of the ice stream and encourage growth and drainage of the subglacial lakes. Lake drainage can cause large R-channels to develop between basal overdeepenings that persist for multiple years. The pressure waves, along with lake growth and drainage rates, do not identically repeat over multiple years, due to basal network development. This suggests that the subglacial hydrology of Recovery Ice Stream is influenced by regional drainage development on the scale of hundreds of kilometers rather than local conditions over tens of kilometers.

Modeling of subglacial hydrological development following rapid supraglacial lake drainage.

The rapid drainage of supraglacial lakes injects substantial volumes of water to the bed of the Greenland ice sheet over short timescales. The effect of these water pulses on the development of basal hydrological systems is largely unknown. To address this, we develop a lake drainage model incorporating both (1) a subglacial radial flux element driven by elastic hydraulic jacking and (2) downstream drainage through a linked channelized and distributed system. Here we present the model and examine whether substantial, efficient subglacial channels can form during or following lake drainage events and their effect on the water pressure in the surrounding distributed system. We force the model with field data from a lake drainage site, 70 km from the terminus of Russell Glacier in West Greenland. The model outputs suggest that efficient subglacial channels do not readily form in the vicinity of the lake during rapid drainage and instead water is evacuated primarily by a transient turbulent sheet and the distributed system. Following lake drainage, channels grow but are not large enough to reduce the water pressure in the surrounding distributed system, unless preexisting channels are present throughout the domain. Our results have implications for the analysis of subglacial hydrological systems in regions where rapid lake drainage provides the primary mechanism for surface-to-bed connections. KEY POINTS: Model for subglacial hydrological analysis of rapid lake drainage eventsLimited subglacial channel growth during and following rapid lake drainagePersistence of distributed drainage in inland areas where channel growth is limited.