Silica is an essential element for marine life and plays a key role in the biogeochemistry of the ocean. Glacial activity stimulates rock weathering, generating dissolved silica that is exported to coastal areas along with meltwater. The magnitude of the dissolved silica export from large glacial areas such as the Greenland Ice Sheet is presently poorly quantified and not accounted for in global budgets. Here we present data from two fjord systems adjacent to the Greenland Ice Sheet which reveal a large export of dissolved silica by glacial meltwater relative to other macronutrients. Upscaled to the entire Greenland Ice Sheet, the export of dissolved silica equals 22 ± 10 Gmol Si yr−1. When the silicate‐rich meltwater mixes with upwelled deep water, either inside or outside Greenland's fjords, primary production takes place at increased silicate to nitrate ratios. This likely stimulates the growth of diatoms relative to other phytoplankton groups.

Here, we present an analysis of monthly, seasonal, and annual long-term precipitation time-series compiled from coastal meteorological stations in Greenland and Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) ice cores (including three new ice core records from

ABSTRACT. Jö kulhlaups in 2007 and 2008 from an ice-dammed lake at the northern margin of Russell Glacier, West Greenland, marked the onset of a renewed jö kulhlaup cycle after 20 years of stability. We present a record of successive ice-dammed lake drainage events and associated ice-margin dynamics spanning $25 years. Robust calculations of lake volumes and peak discharges are made, based on intensive field surveys and utilizing high-spatial-resolution orthophotographs of the lake basin and ice margin. These data enable identification of controls on the behaviour of the ice-dammed lake and provide the first field-based examination of controls on jö kulhlaup magnitude and frequency for this system. We find that Russell Glacier jö kulhlaups have a much higher peak discharge than predicted by the Clague-Mathews relationship, which we attribute to an unusually short englacial/subglacial routeway and the presence of a thin ice dam that permits incomplete sealing of jö kulhlaup conduits between lake drainage events. Additionally, we demonstrate that the passage of jökulhlaups through an interlinked system of proglacial bedrock basins produces significant attenuation of peak discharge downstream. We highlight that improved understanding of jökulhlaup dynamics requires accurate information about ice-dammed lake volume and ice-proximal jö kulhlaup discharge.