Title: PHYSICS-BASED APPROACHES TO INCLUDING SUPRAGLACIAL MELT
LAKES IN EARTH SYSTEM MODELS
Danielle Grau
Committee Members: Dr. Alex Robel, Dr. Winnie Chu, Dr. Yi Deng, Dr. Jingfeng Wang, and Dr. Sammie Buzzard
Date: Friday, June 26th, 2026 10 AM
Location: ES&T L1205
Zoom: Zoom link upon request
Abstract/Summary:
As anthropogenic induced climate change continues to raise Earth’s ambient temperature, the formation of supraglacial melt lakes is expected to increase. These features have been observed across the fringes of Greenland, the Antarctic Peninsula, and several ice shelves in Antarctica. A large-scale ice shelf collapse event in April 2002 of Larsen B ice shelf is believed to have been caused by an abundance of supraglacial melt lakes that formed on the surface in the months prior inducing a large-scale hydrofracture event. Since this large collapse event, the ice shelf has not been able to recover since. Despite the large impact that supraglacial melt lakes have on glacier processes, these features are not well represented in large scale earth system models. This thesis bridges this gap in knowledge by developing a new, easily-adaptable parameterization of the mean area fraction and depth of supraglacial melt lakes on self-affine glacial surfaces. These parameterizations are implemented within a large scale ice-sheet model. Simulations of the future evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet show that including the effect of supraglacial melt lake depth on hydrofracture-driven calving accelerates project future ice sheet mass loss by nearly 100% compared to simulations without calving and 30% compared to simulations that do not represent the depth of supraglacial lakes.