Diverse supraglacial drainage patterns on the Devon ice Cap, Arctic Canada

ABSTRACT The Devon Ice Cap (DIC) is one of the largest ice masses in the Canadian Arctic. Each summer, extensive supraglacial river networks develop on the DIC surface and route large volumes of meltwater from ice caps to the ocean. Mapping their extent and understanding their temporal evolution are important for validating runoff routing and melt volumes predicted by regional climate models (RCMs). We use 10 m Sentinel-2 images captured on 28 July and 10/11 August 2016 to map supraglacial rivers across the entire DIC (12,100 km2). Both dendritic and parallel supraglacial drainage patterns are found, with a total length of 44,941 km and a mean drainage density (Dd ) of 3.71 km−1. As the melt season progresses, Dd increases and supraglacial rivers form at progressively higher elevations. There is a positive correlation between RCM-derived surface runoff and satellite-mapped Dd , suggesting that supraglacial drainage density is primarily controlled by surface runoff.

[1]  J. Lea,et al.  Supraglacial lake mapping of the entire Greenland Ice Sheet using Google Earth Engine , 2019 .

[2]  X. Fettweis,et al.  Surface meltwater runoff on the Greenland ice sheet estimated from remotely sensed supraglacial lake infilling rate , 2019 .

[3]  Manchun Li,et al.  Supraglacial rivers on the northwest Greenland Ice Sheet, Devon Ice Cap, and Barnes Ice Cap mapped using Sentinel-2 imagery , 2019, Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinformation.

[4]  L. Smith,et al.  Supraglacial Streams and Rivers , 2019, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

[5]  J. Ryan,et al.  Greenland Ice Sheet surface melt amplified by snowline migration and bare ice exposure , 2019, Science Advances.

[6]  M. R. van den Broeke,et al.  Atmospheric forcing of rapid marine-terminating glacier retreat in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago , 2019, Science Advances.

[7]  Bert Wouters,et al.  Global sea-level contribution from Arctic land ice: 1971–2017 , 2018, Environmental Research Letters.

[8]  L. Copland,et al.  Changes in glacier facies zonation on Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, detected from SAR imagery and field observations , 2018 .

[9]  X. Fettweis,et al.  Brief communication: Impact of the recent atmospheric circulation change in summer on the future surface mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet , 2018, The Cryosphere.

[10]  Kang Yang,et al.  Basal control of supraglacial meltwater catchments on the Greenland Ice Sheet , 2018, The Cryosphere.

[11]  Stephen J. Livingstone,et al.  Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Topography and Drainage Structure Controlled by the Transfer of Basal Variability , 2018, Front. Earth Sci..

[12]  Bert Wouters,et al.  Six Decades of Glacial Mass Loss in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago , 2018, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.

[13]  Colin J. Gleason,et al.  Direct measurements of meltwater runoff on the Greenland ice sheet surface , 2017, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[14]  Robin E. Bell,et al.  Widespread movement of meltwater onto and across Antarctic ice shelves , 2017, Nature.

[15]  Won Sang Lee,et al.  Antarctic ice shelf potentially stabilized by export of meltwater in surface river , 2017, Nature.

[16]  Fiona Cawkwell,et al.  Characterizing near‐surface firn using the scattered signal component of the glacier surface return from airborne radio‐echo sounding , 2016 .

[17]  Kang Yang,et al.  Flow Routing for Delineating Supraglacial Meltwater Channel Networks , 2016, Remote. Sens..

[18]  Xavier Fettweis,et al.  Reconstructions of the 1900–2015 Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance using the regional climate MAR model , 2016 .

[19]  Colin J. Gleason,et al.  Characterizing supraglacial meltwater channel hydraulics on the Greenland Ice Sheet from in situ observations , 2016 .

[20]  Laurence C. Smith,et al.  Internally drained catchments dominate supraglacial hydrology of the southwest Greenland Ice Sheet , 2016 .

[21]  M. Sharp,et al.  Glacier surface temperatures in the Canadian High Arctic, 2000–15 , 2016, Journal of Glaciology.

[22]  Leif Karlstrom,et al.  Fluvial supraglacial landscape evolution on the Greenland Ice Sheet , 2016 .

[23]  Colin J. Gleason,et al.  Fluvial morphometry of supraglacial river networks on the southwest Greenland Ice Sheet , 2016 .

[24]  Colin J. Gleason,et al.  A Caution on the Use of Surface Digital Elevation Models to Simulate Supraglacial Hydrology of the Greenland Ice Sheet , 2015, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing.

[25]  Manchun Li,et al.  River Detection in Remotely Sensed Imagery Using Gabor Filtering and Path Opening , 2015, Remote. Sens..

[26]  Ian Joughin,et al.  Limits to future expansion of surface‐melt‐enhanced ice flow into the interior of western Greenland , 2015 .

[27]  Colin J. Gleason,et al.  Efficient meltwater drainage through supraglacial streams and rivers on the southwest Greenland ice sheet , 2015, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[28]  D. Lampkin,et al.  Supraglacial melt channel networks in the Jakobshavn Isbræ region during the 2007 melt season , 2014 .

[29]  Vena W. Chu,et al.  Greenland ice sheet hydrology , 2014 .

[30]  M. Sharp,et al.  Changes in accumulation‐area firn stratigraphy and meltwater flow during a period of climate warming: Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada , 2013 .

[31]  C. Legleiter,et al.  Mapping the bathymetry of supraglacial lakes and streams on the Greenland ice sheet using field measurements and high-resolution satellite images , 2013 .

[32]  Kang Yang,et al.  Supraglacial Streams on the Greenland Ice Sheet Delineated From Combined Spectral–Shape Information in High-Resolution Satellite Imagery , 2012, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.

[33]  Philippe Martimort,et al.  Sentinel-2 level 1 products and image processing performances , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[34]  M. Sharp,et al.  Recent melt rates of Canadian arctic ice caps are the highest in four millennia , 2012 .

[35]  A. Hubbard,et al.  POLYTHERMAL GLACIER HYDROLOGY: A REVIEW , 2011 .

[36]  Harihar Rajaram,et al.  An increase in crevasse extent, West Greenland: Hydrologic implications , 2011 .

[37]  J. Graham Cogley,et al.  Extreme melt on Canada's Arctic ice caps in the 21st century , 2011 .

[38]  Carsten Braun,et al.  Sharply increased mass loss from glaciers and ice caps in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago , 2011, Nature.

[39]  Philippe Huybrechts,et al.  Melt-induced speed-up of Greenland ice sheet offset by efficient subglacial drainage , 2011, Nature.

[40]  C. Schoof.  Ice-sheet acceleration driven by melt supply variability , 2010, Nature.

[41]  I. Simmonds,et al.  The central role of diminishing sea ice in recent Arctic temperature amplification , 2010, Nature.

[42]  Sarah Boon,et al.  Forty-seven Years of Research on the Devon Island Ice Cap, Arctic Canada , 2010 .

[43]  Randy Showstack,et al.  Arctic Report Card , 2009 .

[44]  Hugues Talbot,et al.  Path Openings and Closings , 2005, Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision.

[45]  M. Sharp,et al.  Thirty-seven year mass balance of Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada, determined by shallow ice coring and melt modeling , 2005 .

[46]  James K. Yungel,et al.  Elevation changes of ice caps in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago , 2004 .

[47]  Julian A. Dowdeswell,et al.  Form and flow of the Devon Island Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic , 2004 .

[48]  M. Sharp,et al.  Recent Changes in Areal Extent of the Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada , 2004 .

[49]  F. Lefebre,et al.  Modeling of snow and ice melt at ETH Camp (West Greenland): A study of surface albedo , 2003 .

[50]  S. K. McFeeters.  The use of the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) in the delineation of open water features , 1996 .

[51]  R. Armstrong,et al.  The Physics of Glaciers , 1981 .

[52]  A. Roth,et al.  Detecting Supraglacial Meltwater Drainage on the Devon Ice Cap using Kennaugh Decomposition of TerraSAR-X imagery , 2018 .

[53]  G. Nosenko,et al.  Randolph Glacier Inventory(RGI)-A Dataset of Global Glacier Outlines:Version6.0. Technical Report,Global Land Ice Measurements from Space , 2017 .

[54]  M. Sharp,et al.  Linking surface hydrology to flow regimes and patterns of velocity variability on Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut , 2015 .

[55]  M. Sharp,et al.  Firn profile changes in response to extreme 21st-century melting at Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada , 2013, Journal of Glaciology.

[56]  M. Sharp,et al.  Changes in melt season characteristics on Devon Ice Cap, Canada, and their association with the Arctic atmospheric circulation , 2013, Annals of Glaciology.

[57]  Faye R. Wyatt.  The spatial structure and temporal development of supraglacial drainage systems, and their influence on the flow dynamics of High Arctic ice caps , 2013 .

[58]  Zhijun Du,et al.  Mass balance of Devon Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic , 2007, Annals of Glaciology.

[59]  M. Sharp,et al.  Flow dynamics and iceberg calving rates of Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada , 2005, Journal of Glaciology.

[60]  J. Oerlemans,et al.  Modelling albedo and specific balance of the Greenland ice sheet: calculations for the Søndre Strømfjord transect , 1996, Journal of Glaciology.

[61]  R. Bindschadler,et al.  Combined measurements of Subglacial Water Pressure and Surface Velocity of Findelengletscher, Switzerland: Conclusions about Drainage System and Sliding Mechanism , 1986, Journal of Glaciology.

[62]  A. Iken,et al.  Plucking as an Effect of Water-Pressure Variations at the Glacier Bed , 1981, Annals of Glaciology.