scholarly journals Thermal controls on ice stream shear margins

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Pierce Hunter ◽  
Colin Meyer ◽  
Brent Minchew ◽  
Marianne Haseloff ◽  
Alan Rempel

Abstract Ice stream discharge responds to a balance between gravity, basal friction and lateral drag. Appreciable viscous heating occurs in shear margins between ice streams and adjacent slow-moving ice ridges, altering the temperature-dependent viscosity distribution that connects lateral drag to marginal strain rates and ice stream velocity. Warmer ice deforms more easily and accommodates faster flow, whereas cold ice supplied from ice ridges drives advective cooling that counteracts viscous heating. Here, we present a two-dimensional (three velocity component), steady-state model designed to explore the thermal controls on ice stream shear margins. We validate our treatment through comparison with observed velocities for Bindschadler Ice Stream and verify that calculated temperatures are consistent with results from previous studies. Sweeping through a parameter range that encompasses conditions representative of ice streams in Antarctica, we show that modeled steady-state velocity has a modest response to different choices in forcing up until temperate zones develop in the shear margins. When temperate zones are present, velocity is much more sensitive to changes in forcing. We identify key scalings for the emergence of temperate conditions in our idealized treatment that can be used to identify where thermo-mechanical feedbacks influence the evolution of the ice sheet.

2007 ◽  
Vol 571 ◽  
pp. 359-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONATHAN J. WYLIE ◽  
HUAXIONG HUANG

In this paper we investigate the role played by viscous heating in extensional flows of viscous threads with temperature-dependent viscosity. We show that there exists an interesting interplay between the effects of viscous heating, which accelerates thinning, and inertia, which prevents pinch-off. We first consider steady drawing of a thread that is fed through a fixed aperture at given speed and pulled with a constant force at a fixed downstream location. For pulling forces above a critical value, we show that inertialess solutions cannot exist and inertia is crucial in controlling the dynamics. We also consider the unsteady stretching of a thread that is fixed at one end and pulled with a constant force at the other end. In contrast to the case in which inertia is neglected, the thread will always pinch at the end where the force is applied. Our results show that viscous heating can have a profound effect on the final shape and total extension at pinching.


1988 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 77-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. MacAyeal ◽  
R. A. Bindschadler ◽  
K. C. Jezek ◽  
S. Shabtaie

Configurations of relict surface-crevasse bands and medial moraines that emanate from the shear margins of ice streams are simulated, using a numerical model of an ideal rectangular ice shelf to determine their potential for recording a past ice-stream discharge chronology.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
Mustafa Tutar ◽  
Ali Karakus

Abstract The combined effects of solidification and viscous dissipation on the hydrodynamic and thermal behavior of polymer melt flow during the injection process in a straight plane channel of constant cross section are numerically studied by considering the shear-rate and temperature-dependent viscosity and transient-phase change behavior. A numerical finite volume method, in conjunction with a modified form of the Cross constitutive equation to account for shear rate, temperature-dependent viscosity changes and a slightly modified form of the method proposed by Voller and Prakash to account for solidification of the liquid phase, is used and a validation with an analytical solution is presented for viscous heating effects. The hydrodynamic and solidified layers growth under the influence of a transient phase-change process and viscous dissipation, are analyzed for a commercial polymer melt flow, polypropylene (PP) for different parametric conditions namely, inflow velocity, polymer injection (inflow) temperature, the channel wall temperature, and the channel height. The results demonstrate that the proposed numerical formulations, including conjugate effects of viscous heating and transient-solidification on the present thermal transport process, can provide an accurate and realistic representation of polymer melt flow behavior during the injection molding process in plane channels with less simplifying assumptions.


1996 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 129-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. van der Veen ◽  
I. M. Whillans

A simple model is developed based on the notion that on active ice streams the resistance to flow is partitioned between basal drag and lateral drag. The relative roles of these sources of resistance is determined by a friction parameter that effectively describes the strength of the bed under the ice stream. Reduction in the basal strength is caused by meltwater production, taken proportional to the product of basal drag and ice speed. The width of the ice stream is governed by the balance between entrainment or erosion of ice from the slow-moving inter-stream ridges and advection from the ridges into the ice stream. Entrainment of ridge ice is parameterized as a function of the shear stress at the lateral margins, in one case proportional to the lateral shear stress and in the second case scaled to ice-stream width. In the first formulation, the model rapidly becomes unstable but, using the second formulation, a steady state is reached with lateral drag providing all or most of the resistance to flow. The results point to the great importance of achieving an understanding of entrainment. With the second model and a wide range of parameter values, there is no cyclic behavior, with rapid flow being followed by a quiescent phase.


1992 ◽  
Vol 38 (128) ◽  
pp. 125-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Hughes

AbstractGravity wants to pull an ice sheet to the center of the Earth, but cannot because the Earth’s crust is in the way, so ice is pushed out sideways instead. Or is it? The ice sheet “sees” nothing preventing it from spreading out except air, which is much less massive than ice. Therefore, does not ice rush forward to fill this relative vacuum; does not the relative vacuum suck ice into it, because Nature abhors a vacuum? If so, the ice sheet is not only pulled downward by gravity, it is also pulled outward by the relative vacuum. This pulling outward will be most rapid where the ice sheet encounters least resistance. The least resistance exists along the bed of ice streams, where ice-bed coupling is reduced by a basal water layer, especially if the ice stream becomes afloat and the floating part is relatively unconfined around its perimeter and unpinned to the sea floor. Ice streams are therefore fast currents of ice that develop near the margins of an ice sheet where these conditions exist. Because of these conditions, ice streams pull ice out of ice sheets and have pulling power equal to the longitudinal gravitational pulling force multiplied by the ice-stream velocity. These boundary conditions beneath and beyond ice streams can be quantified by a basal buoyancy factor that provides a life-cycle classification of ice streams into inception, growth, mature, declining and terminal stages, during which ice streams disintegrate the ice sheet. Surface profiles of ice streams are diagnostic of the stage in a life cycle and, hence, of the vitality of the ice sheet.


1995 ◽  
Vol 05 (06) ◽  
pp. 725-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACQUES BARANGER ◽  
ANDRO MIKELIĆ

System of equations describing the stationary flow of a quasi-Newtonian fluid, with temperature-dependent viscosity and with a viscous heating, is considered. Existence of at least one appropriate weak solution is proved, i.e. we get existence of at least one velocity field having finite energy and existence of a non-negative temperature field. Its regularity is a consequence of the L1-forcing term generated by the viscous heating.


1988 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 77-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. MacAyeal ◽  
R. A. Bindschadler ◽  
K. C. Jezek ◽  
S. Shabtaie

Configurations of relict surface-crevasse bands and medial moraines that emanate from the shear margins of ice streams are simulated, using a numerical model of an ideal rectangular ice shelf to determine their potential for recording a past ice-stream discharge chronology.


1992 ◽  
Vol 38 (128) ◽  
pp. 125-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Hughes

Abstract Gravity wants to pull an ice sheet to the center of the Earth, but cannot because the Earth’s crust is in the way, so ice is pushed out sideways instead. Or is it? The ice sheet “sees” nothing preventing it from spreading out except air, which is much less massive than ice. Therefore, does not ice rush forward to fill this relative vacuum; does not the relative vacuum suck ice into it, because Nature abhors a vacuum? If so, the ice sheet is not only pulled downward by gravity, it is also pulled outward by the relative vacuum. This pulling outward will be most rapid where the ice sheet encounters least resistance. The least resistance exists along the bed of ice streams, where ice-bed coupling is reduced by a basal water layer, especially if the ice stream becomes afloat and the floating part is relatively unconfined around its perimeter and unpinned to the sea floor. Ice streams are therefore fast currents of ice that develop near the margins of an ice sheet where these conditions exist. Because of these conditions, ice streams pull ice out of ice sheets and have pulling power equal to the longitudinal gravitational pulling force multiplied by the ice-stream velocity. These boundary conditions beneath and beyond ice streams can be quantified by a basal buoyancy factor that provides a life-cycle classification of ice streams into inception, growth, mature, declining and terminal stages, during which ice streams disintegrate the ice sheet. Surface profiles of ice streams are diagnostic of the stage in a life cycle and, hence, of the vitality of the ice sheet.


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