Causes of sudden, short-term changes in ice-stream surface elevation

Recent satellite-borne observations of Antarctica's ice streams show sudden, spatially confined surface-elevation changes that are interpreted as caused by subglacial water movement. Using a numerical model of idealized ice-stream flow coupled to various simple treatments of subglacial bed conditions, we demonstrate that ice-stream flow dynamics significantly modulates the surface-elevation expression of processes taking place at the ice-stream bed. This modulation means that observed surface-elevation changes do not directly translate to basal-elevation changes, e.g. inflation or deflation of subglacial water pockets, of equal magnitude and shape. Thus, subglacial water volume change is not directly proportional to the area integral of surface-elevation changes. Model results show that ambiguities in interpretation of surface elevation changes can be overcome with additional measurements, such as of surface velocity change, and through development of methodology designed to understand transfer of basal change to surface change.