Motivation
- Greenland's tidewater glaciers are a major source of sediment and fresh water to fjord systems.
- This sediment supply delivers nutrients to fjord ecosystems, influences global and regional biogeochemical cycles, alters the morphology of Greenland’s fjords and coastlines, and provides vital natural resources.
- Beneath glaciers, eroded sediment is either transported by meltwater, entering the fjord as a plume or as bed load, or by basal ice layers, entering the fjord as ice-rafted debris.
- Currently, we have very few constraints on Greenland’s modern ice-rafted debris budget, much less the capability to predict how it may change under a warming climate.
Description
In this work, we:
- Present a dataset of over 100 observed debris-rich icebergs,
- Implement a physic-based model to predict the amount of sediment entering a fjord from iceberg calving, and
- Deliver a comprehensive estimate of the total flux of ice-rafted debris at three major fjord systems.