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Krawczynski, M.J., M. D. Behn, S. B. Das, and I. Joughin
, Constraints on the lake volume required for hydrofracture through ice sheets
, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2008GL036765
Water-filled cracks are an effective mechanism to drive hydro-fractures through thick ice sheets. Crack geometry is therefore critical in assessing whether a supraglacial lake contains a sufficient volume of water to keep a crack water-filled until it reaches the bed. In this study, we investigate fracture propagation using a linear elastic fracture mechanics model to calculate the dimensions of water-filled cracks beneath supraglacial lakes. We find that the cross-sectional area of water-filled cracks increases non-linearly with ice sheet thickness. Using these results, we place volumetric constraints on the amount of water necessary to drive cracks through ~1 km of sub-freezing ice. For ice sheet regions under little tension, lakes larger than 0.25–0.80 km in diameter contain sufficient water to rapidly drive hydro-fractures through 1–1.5 km of subfreezing ice. This represents ~98% of the meltwater volume held in supraglacial lakes in the central western margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
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