Grounding Zones: The “Inland” Dynamic Interface Between Seawater, Outlet Glaciers, Subglacial Meltwater Routing, and Ice‐Shelf Processes

Abstract

Abstract Projections of sea‐level rise from ice‐sheet shrinkage in a warming world have large uncertainties, linked to limited knowledge of changes at the ocean‐ice sheet interface. This interface most typically is modeled as a grounding line, across which still‐connected ice flows into the ocean to float as an ice shelf, or where icebergs calve from a cliff before the ice begins to float. But, extensive and rapidly increasing evidence shows that this is really a grounding zone, and that processes in this grounding zone omitted from many models could exert major controls on sea‐level rise.

Keywords

• grounding zones
• subglacial processes
• outlet glaciers
• ice‐ocean interactions
• ice‐sheet modeling