The role of atmospheric blocking on the calving of Greenland’s marine-terminating glaciers
(2026) NGEK11 20261Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (MGeo)
- Abstract
- The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is seeing an accelerated rate of ice melt, which increasingly contributes to global sea-level rise. Studies have reported a growing mass imbalance coinciding with a widespread retreat of the island’s glacial termini. The associated discharge of ice is driven by submarine melting and ice breaking off glacial fronts, a process known as calving. The rate at which calving occurs is influenced by large-scale oceanic and atmospheric factors. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of atmospheric blocking on ice calving from 2013 to 2021. To analyze this, a dataset of glacial fronts delineated by a novel machine learning algorithm is used in combination with the relatively new parameter of extreme Greenland... (More)
- The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is seeing an accelerated rate of ice melt, which increasingly contributes to global sea-level rise. Studies have reported a growing mass imbalance coinciding with a widespread retreat of the island’s glacial termini. The associated discharge of ice is driven by submarine melting and ice breaking off glacial fronts, a process known as calving. The rate at which calving occurs is influenced by large-scale oceanic and atmospheric factors. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of atmospheric blocking on ice calving from 2013 to 2021. To analyze this, a dataset of glacial fronts delineated by a novel machine learning algorithm is used in combination with the relatively new parameter of extreme Greenland Blocking Episodes (GBEs). A Superposed Epoch Analysis (SEA) is performed for a visual analysis of the effect of extreme GBEs on calving, strengthened by several Mann-Whitney U tests to analyze the influence of blocking on surface air temperatures and weekly and yearly rates of calving.
Despite high variability of the glacial response across the study period, a widespread glacial retreat is found, with a mean withdrawal of 106 m year-1 per glacier. Ten occurrences of extreme GBEs are identified throughout the study period, during which the temperature anomalies are shown to be significantly higher than outside of the episodes. No relationship to blocking is found for the short-term calving rates of the pooled and individual set of glaciers. The year 2019 sees double the amount of extreme GBEs as any other year, but there is no significant increase in calving. Although atmospheric blocking is known to induce glacial surface melt, my study finds no clear link to the process of calving. Understanding how atmospheric conditions influence processes on the GrIS is key to improving models of ice melt and sea-level rise estimates. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9234061
- author
- Wright, Finn Donald LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- NGEK11 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9234061
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-09 16:18:25
- date last changed
- 2026-06-09 16:18:25
@misc{9234061,
abstract = {{The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is seeing an accelerated rate of ice melt, which increasingly contributes to global sea-level rise. Studies have reported a growing mass imbalance coinciding with a widespread retreat of the island’s glacial termini. The associated discharge of ice is driven by submarine melting and ice breaking off glacial fronts, a process known as calving. The rate at which calving occurs is influenced by large-scale oceanic and atmospheric factors. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of atmospheric blocking on ice calving from 2013 to 2021. To analyze this, a dataset of glacial fronts delineated by a novel machine learning algorithm is used in combination with the relatively new parameter of extreme Greenland Blocking Episodes (GBEs). A Superposed Epoch Analysis (SEA) is performed for a visual analysis of the effect of extreme GBEs on calving, strengthened by several Mann-Whitney U tests to analyze the influence of blocking on surface air temperatures and weekly and yearly rates of calving.
Despite high variability of the glacial response across the study period, a widespread glacial retreat is found, with a mean withdrawal of 106 m year-1 per glacier. Ten occurrences of extreme GBEs are identified throughout the study period, during which the temperature anomalies are shown to be significantly higher than outside of the episodes. No relationship to blocking is found for the short-term calving rates of the pooled and individual set of glaciers. The year 2019 sees double the amount of extreme GBEs as any other year, but there is no significant increase in calving. Although atmospheric blocking is known to induce glacial surface melt, my study finds no clear link to the process of calving. Understanding how atmospheric conditions influence processes on the GrIS is key to improving models of ice melt and sea-level rise estimates.}},
author = {{Wright, Finn Donald}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The role of atmospheric blocking on the calving of Greenland’s marine-terminating glaciers}},
year = {{2026}},
}