Collaborative Research: Elucidating the Ocean Dynamics Governing Melt at Glaciers Using Lagrangian Floats

This study will determine the physical processes that cause melting at an Alaskan glacier that ends in a fjord. The study will try to determine if recirculating cells and waves below the sea-surface cause stronger velocities than the flows associated with melting glaciers. The team will develop instruments that drift in three dimensions, capable of drifting along a fixed depth or move with a water type. These drifting instruments will be combined with instrumentation that is fixed at one place and with ship measurements, and with computer models to decipher the interactions of different three-dimensional motions at the glacier face; and to resolve the time and space structure of flows that enhance heat flux to, and melting of, the glacier. Understanding of these processes will allow predictions of glacier mass loss and resulting melt-water flux into the polar oceans.