Glaciological twins: Basally controlled subglacial and supraglacial lakes

Abstract

Subglacial lakes beneath ice streams of Antarctica and supraglacial lakes observed on the flanks of the Greenland ice sheet may seem to be unrelated. The former derive their water from energy dissipation associated with basal friction, the latter from atmospherically driven surface melting. However, using numerical models of ice and water flow, it is shown here that they share a common relationship to basal conditions that implies that surface lakes (or depressions that could host lakes under warmer atmospheric conditions) and basal lakes might exist in tandem.