A stabilized finite element method for calculating balance velocities in ice sheets

Brinkerhoff, D.; Johnson, J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-1275-2015

Articles | Volume 8, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-1275-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-1275-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 5

Methods for assessment of models

|

04 May 2015

Methods for assessment of models |

| 04 May 2015

A stabilized finite element method for calculating balance velocities in ice sheets

D. Brinkerhoff and J. Johnson

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Final revised paper (published on 04 May 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 08 Aug 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C1600: 'Reviewer's Comments', James Fastook, 05 Sep 2014
RC C1767: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 15 Sep 2014
AC C2190: 'Author Response', Douglas Brinkerhoff, 01 Nov 2014

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Douglas Brinkerhoff on behalf of the Authors (03 Nov 2014) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Dec 2014) by Philippe Huybrechts

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (28 Jan 2015)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (13 Feb 2015) by Philippe Huybrechts

AR by Douglas Brinkerhoff on behalf of the Authors (21 Feb 2015) Author's response

ED: Publish as is (11 Mar 2015) by Philippe Huybrechts

AR by Douglas Brinkerhoff on behalf of the Authors (31 Mar 2015)

Short summary

We present a novel numerical method for computing velocity fields in ice sheets using the principle of mass conservation, and show that, for suitable smoothing of flow directions, the velocity converges to a unique solution under grid refinement. We use this method as the forward model in a constrained optimization problem, and use these so-called balance velocities to seamlessly fill in gaps between satellite-based velocity observations.