Abstract. There is significant uncertainty over how ice sheets and glaciers will respond to rising global temperatures. Limited knowledge of the topography and rheology of the ice–bed interface is a key cause of this uncertainty as models show that small changes in the bed can have a large influence on predicted rates of ice loss. Most of our detailed knowledge of bed topography comes from airborne and ground-penetrating radar observations. However, these direct observations are not spaced closely enough to meet the requirements of ice-sheet models, so interpolation and inversion methods are used to fill in the gaps. Here we present the results of a new inversion of surface elevation and velocity data over Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, for bed topography and slipperiness (i.e. the degree of basal slip for a given level of drag). The inversion is based on a steady-state linear perturbation analysis of the shallow-ice-stream equations. The method works by identifying disturbances to surface flow which are caused by obstacles or sticky patches in the bed and can therefore be applied wherever the shallow-ice-stream equations hold and where surface data are available, even where the ice thickness is not well known. We assess the performance of the inversion for topography with the available radar data. Although the topographic output from the inversion is less successful where the bed slopes steeply, it compares well with radar data from the central trunk of the glacier for medium-wavelength features (5–50 km). This method could therefore be useful as an independent test of other interpolation methods such as mass conservation and kriging. We do not have data to allow us to assess the success of the slipperiness results from our inversions, but we provide maps that may guide future seismic data collection across Thwaites Glacier. The methods presented here show significant promise for using high-resolution satellite datasets, calibrated by sparser field datasets, to generate high-resolution bed topography products across the ice sheets and therefore contribute to reduced uncertainty in predictions of future sea-level rise.

One of the largest contributors to uncertainty in predictions of sea-level rise from ice-sheet models is a lack of knowledge about the bed topography beneath ice sheets. Bed topography maps are normally made by interpolating between linear radar surveys using methods that include kriging, mass conservation and flowline diffusion, all of which may miss influential mesoscale (2–30 km) bedforms. Previous works have explored an Ice-Flow Perturbation Analysis (IFPA) approach for estimating bed topography using the surface expression of these mesoscale bedforms. Using regions of Pine Island Glacier that have been intensively surveyed by ice-penetrating radar as test sites, and a refined IFPA methodology, we find that IFPA detects bedforms capable of influencing ice flow which are not represented in Bedmachine Antarctica and other interpolated bed products. We further explore the ability of IFPA to estimate relative bed slipperiness, finding higher slipperiness in the main trunk and tributaries. Alongside other methods which estimate ice thickness, bed topography maps from IFPA have the potential to constrain projections of future sea-level rise, especially where radar data are sparse.

Abstract. There is significant uncertainty over how ice sheets and glaciers will respond to rising global temperatures. Limited knowledge of the topography and rheology of ice-bed interface is a key cause of this uncertainty, as models show that small changes in the bed can have a large influence on predicted rates of ice loss. Most of our detailed knowledge of bed topography comes from airborne and ground-penetrating radar observations. However, these direct observations are not spaced closely enough to meet the requirements of ice-sheet models, so interpolation and inversion methods are used to fill in the gaps. Here we present the results of a new inversion of surface-elevation and velocity data over Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, for bed topography and slipperiness (i.e. the degree of basal slip for a given level of drag). The inversion is based on a steady-state linear perturbation analysis of the shallow-ice-stream equations. The method works by identifying disturbances to surface flow which are caused by obstacles or sticky patches in the bed, and can therefore be applied wherever the shallow-ice-stream equations hold and where surface data are available, even where the ice thickness is not well known. We assess the performance of the inversion for topography with the available radar data. Although the topographic output from the inversion is less successful where the bed slopes steeply, it compares well with radar data from the central trunk of the glacier. This method could therefore be useful as either an independent test of other interpolation methods such as mass conservation and kriging, or as a complementary technique in regions where those techniques fail. We do not have data to allow us to assess the success of the slipperiness results from our inversions, but we provide maps that may guide future seismic data collection across Thwaites Glacier. The methods presented here show significant promise for using high-resolution satellite datasets, calibrated by the sparser field datasets, to generate high resolution bed topography products across the ice sheets, and therefore contribute to reduced uncertainty in predictions of future sea-level rise.

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