Dark ice dynamics of the south-west Greenland Ice Sheet

Tedstone, Andrew J.; Bamber, Jonathan L.; Cook, Joseph M.; Williamson, Christopher J.; Fettweis, Xavier; Hodson, Andrew J.; Tranter, Martyn

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2491-2017

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2491-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2491-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

Research article

|

03 Nov 2017

Research article |

| 03 Nov 2017

Dark ice dynamics of the south-west Greenland Ice Sheet

Andrew J. Tedstone, Jonathan L. Bamber, Joseph M. Cook, Christopher J. Williamson, Xavier Fettweis, Andrew J. Hodson, and Martyn Tranter

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Final revised paper (published on 03 Nov 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 19 May 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'review of Tedstone et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Jun 2017
RC2: 'Review of Tedstone et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 Jul 2017
AC1: 'Author response to RC1 and RC2', Andrew Tedstone, 17 Aug 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Andrew Tedstone on behalf of the Authors (17 Aug 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (23 Sep 2017) by Marco Tedesco

Short summary

The bare ice albedo of the south-west Greenland ice sheet varies dramatically between years. The reasons are unclear but likely involve darkening by inorganic particulates, cryoconite and ice algae. We use satellite imagery to examine dark ice dynamics and climate model outputs to find likely climatological controls. Outcropping particulates can explain the spatial extent of dark ice, but the darkening itself is likely due to ice algae growth controlled by meltwater and light availability.