Processes influencing heat transfer in the near-surface ice of Greenland's ablation zone

Hills, Benjamin H.; Harper, Joel T.; Meierbachtol, Toby W.; Johnson, Jesse V.; Humphrey, Neil F.; Wright, Patrick J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3215-2018

Articles | Volume 12, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3215-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3215-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 10

Research article

|

08 Oct 2018

Research article |

| 08 Oct 2018

Processes influencing heat transfer in the near-surface ice of Greenland's ablation zone

Benjamin H. Hills, Joel T. Harper, Toby W. Meierbachtol, Jesse V. Johnson, Neil F. Humphrey, and Patrick J. Wright

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-3215-2018-supplement

Data sets

Near-surface ice temperature measurements from Western Greenland, 2011-2017. Arctic Data Center. Hills, B. H., Harper, J. T., Meierbachtol, T. W., Johnson, J. V., Humphrey, N. F., & Wright, P. J. https://doi.org/10.18739/A2G44HQ01

Short summary

At its surface, an ice sheet is closely connected to the climate. Assessing heat transfer between near-surface ice and the overlying atmosphere is important for understanding how the ice sheet is melting at the surface. We measured ice temperature within 20 m of the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Resulting ice temperatures are warmer than the air, a peculiar result which implies the role of some nonconductive heat transfer processes such as latent heating by refreezing meltwater.