Increased Melting of Marine‐Terminating Glaciers by Sediment‐Laden Plumes

Abstract

Abstract This paper summarizes the results of the first investigation into the effect of particle‐laden plumes on glacier melting using laboratory experiments. We find that the melt rate, when the ice is exposed to a particle‐laden plume, can be larger than when exposed to an equivalent plume without particles. The increased melt rate is linked to an increase in the plume velocity in response to the presence of suspended particles. Including this increased velocity in a plume model improves melt rate predictions from the “three‐equation model” by approximately 45% for the range of particle concentrations used in this study.

Keywords

• melting
• Greenland
• sediment
• laboratory