Exploring the conditions conducive to convection within the Greenland Ice Sheet

13 February 2026

Convection has been previously, yet contentiously, suggested for ice sheets, but never before comprehensively explored using numerical models. The authors use mantle dynamics code to test the hypothesis that convection gives rise to enigmatic plume-like features observed in radio-stratigraphy observations of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their results provide very good agreement with field observations, but could imply that ice in northern Greenland is significantly softer than commonly thought.

Please also read the press release by University of Bergen.

Contact: Robert Law (roblaw@ethz.ch)