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Originally published in Science Express on 6 June 2002
Science 12 July 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5579, pp. 218 - 222
DOI: 10.1126/science.1072708
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Research Articles

Surface Melt-Induced Acceleration of Greenland Ice-Sheet Flow

H. Jay Zwally,1* Waleed Abdalati,2 Tom Herring,3 Kristine Larson,4 Jack Saba,5 Konrad Steffen6

Ice flow at a location in the equilibrium zone of the west-central Greenland Ice Sheet accelerates above the midwinter average rate during periods of summer melting. The near coincidence of the ice acceleration with the duration of surface melting, followed by deceleration after the melting ceases, indicates that glacial sliding is enhanced by rapid migration of surface meltwater to the ice-bedrock interface. Interannual variations in the ice acceleration are correlated with variations in the intensity of the surface melting, with larger increases accompanying higher amounts of summer melting. The indicated coupling between surface melting and ice-sheet flow provides a mechanism for rapid, large-scale, dynamic responses of ice sheets to climate warming.

1 Oceans and Ice Branch, Code 971, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
2 Code YS, NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street, SW, Washington, DC 20546, USA.
3 Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, MIT Room 54-618, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
4 Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
5 Raytheon Inc., Code 971, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
6 CIRES, University of Colorado, CB 216, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jay.zwally{at}gsfc.nasa.gov

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)