These data were aquired with a Terrestrial Radar Interferometer overlooking the grounding zone of Priestley Glacier, Antarctica. The time series contains differential interferograms with a 12h temporal baseline covering an approximately 8 day period in November 2018.
Tidal modulation of ice streams and their adjacent ice shelves is a real-world experiment to understand ice-dynamic processes. We observe the dynamics of Priestley Glacier, Antarctica, using Terrestrial Radar Interferometry (TRI) and GNSS. Ocean tides are predominantly diurnal but horizontal GNSS displacements oscillate also semi-diurnally. The oscillations are strongest in the ice shelf and tidal signatures decay near-linearly in the TRI data over >10 km upstream of the grounding line. Tidal flexing is observed >6 km upstream of the grounding line including cm-scale uplift. Tidal grounding line migration is small and <40 % of the ice thickness. The frequency doubling of horizontal displacements relative to the ocean tides is consistent with variable ice-shelf buttressing demonstrated with a visco-elastic Maxwell model. Taken together, this supports previously hypothesized flexural ice softening in the grounding-zone through tides and offers new observational constraints for the role of ice rheology in ice-shelf buttressing.
Related Publication:
Drews, R., Wild, C. T., Marsh, O. J., Rack, W., Ehlers, T. A., Neckel, N., & Helm, V. (2021). Grounding-zone flow variability of Priestley Glacier, Antarctica, in a diurnal tidal regime. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL093853. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093853
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https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.935707
