High-Resolution Simulations of the Plume Dynamics in an Idealized 79°N Glacier Cavity Using Adaptive Vertical Coordinates

Abstract

For better projections of sea level rise, two things are needed: an improved understanding of the contributing processes and their accurate representation in climate models. A major process is basal melting of ice shelves and glacier tongues by the ocean, which reduces ice sheet stability and increases ice discharge into the ocean. We study marine melting of Greenland's largest floating ice tongue, the 79° North Glacier, using a high-resolution, 2D-vertical ocean model. While our fjord model is idealized, the results agree with observations of melt rate and overturning strength. Our setup is the first application of adaptive vertical coordinates to an ice cavity. Their stratification-zooming allows a vertical resolution finer than 1 m in the entrainment layer of the meltwater plume, which is important for the plume development. We find that the plume development is dominated by entrainment only initially. In the stratified upper part of the cavity, the subglacial plume shows continuous detrainment. It reaches neutral buoyancy near 100 m depth, detaches from the ice, and transports meltwater out of the fjord. Melting almost stops there. In a sensitivity study, we show that the detachment depth depends primarily on stratification. Our results contribute to the understanding of ice–ocean interactions in glacier cavities. Furthermore, we suggest that our modeling approach with stratification-zooming coordinates will improve the representation of these interactions in global ocean models. Finally, our idealized model topography and forcing are close to a real fjord and completely defined analytically, making the setup an interesting reference case for future model developments.