1993/01/01 by Ayako Abe‐Ouchi, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Heinz Blatter
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Cryospheric studies and observations #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Landslides and related hazards
paper · pdf · doi:10.3189/s0260305500011514
openalex publication_date 1993/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
The initiation and evolution of ice sheets are investigated using a two-dimensional thermo-mechanical ice-sheet model. The importance of the amount of snow accumulation on the ice sheet initiation is summarised in the following three points: (1) an ice sheet can grow from an initial area of less than 50 km diameter with a positive but large-enough accumulation rate; (2) the pattern of multiple steady-state solution branches critically depends on the surface mass balance; and (3) snow accumulation strongly controls the growth rate of the ice mass, which is crucial for ice sheets evolving in the limited time available during Milankovitch cycles.