Ice?Shelf Basal Melt Channels Stabilized by Secondary Flow

Ice-shelf basal channels form due to concentrated submarine melting. They are present in many Antarctic ice shelves and can reduce ice-shelf structural integrity, potentially destabilizing by full-depth incision. Here, we describe the viscous response a channel—secondary flow—which acts perpendicular channel axis is induced gradients thickness. We use full-Stokes ice-flow model systematically assess transient evolution of presence Secondary flow increases with size reduces rate incision, such that linear extrapolation or Shallow-Shelf Approximation cannot project future evolution. For thick ( m) secondary stabilizes channel, but insufficient significantly delay breakthrough for thinner m). Using synthetic data, impact when inferring basal-channel melt rates from satellite observations.