Presenters-0717
From CSDMS
CSDMS 2026: Modeling Landscapes in Motion
Simulating debris-covered mountain glaciers with icepack
Abstract
This talk will describe some recent modeling and field work on Emmons Glacier on Mount Rainier, WA. The most common approach to simulating mountain glaciers uses the shallow ice approximation (SIA) to the glacier momentum balance equation, but field measurements of the velocity of Emmons and Nisqually in 2015 found that SIA predicts a speed that is only 5% of the true value. We've developed a new approach to simulating glacier momentum balance based on convex duality which incorporates sliding and extensional stresses as well as a moving terminus and with this we can get the correct speed and seasonality. Emmons and its neighbors are also interesting because a landslide in 1963 covered their termini, but each glacier has responded differently since then. Our next step is to add debris cover to the model, which is still in progress. Finally, we will (try to) survey Emmons Glacier with ground-penetrating radar in March or April to measure its thickness, the first such measurements since the 80s. I'll conclude by showing our survey results and how we're using them to better initialize models.
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