Glacial Ice Front Calving: Internal Wave Generation and Melting

Mark Inall; Neil Fraser; Arild Sundfjord; Michael P. Meredith

doi:10.1029/2026GL122121

Glacial Ice Front Calving: Internal Wave Generation and Melting

Mark Inall
, Neil Fraser
, Arild Sundfjord
, Michael P. Meredith

SAMS UHI

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

11 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Small, frequent calving events dominate the behavior of most Arctic marine‐terminating glaciers,yet their oceanographic impacts remain largely unquantified. We present the first direct observations of internalwaves generated by modest ice‐fall calving at Kronebreen, Svalbard. High‐resolution current meter andmicrostructure measurements show that each event excites weakly nonlinear multi‐modal internal wave packetswith ∼4 m vertical displacements and mode 1 propagation speeds of 0.35–0.42 ms

Original language	English
Article number	GRL72671
Number of pages	10
Journal	GEOPHYS RES LETT
Volume	53
Issue number	11
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2026GL122121
Publication status	Published - 3 Jun 2026

Keywords

internal waves
arctic
fjords
calving
glaciers
melt

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10.1029/2026GL122121Licence: CC BY

Glacial Ice‐Front Calving Internal Wave Generation and Melting
©2026. The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 2.41 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Glacial Ice Front Calving: Internal Wave Generation and Melting",

abstract = "Small, frequent calving events dominate the behavior of most Arctic marine‐terminating glaciers,yet their oceanographic impacts remain largely unquantified. We present the first direct observations of internalwaves generated by modest ice‐fall calving at Kronebreen, Svalbard. High‐resolution current meter andmicrostructure measurements show that each event excites weakly nonlinear multi‐modal internal wave packetswith ∼4 m vertical displacements and mode 1 propagation speeds of 0.35–0.42 ms",

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T2 - Internal Wave Generation and Melting

AU - Inall, Mark

AU - Fraser, Neil

AU - Sundfjord, Arild

AU - Meredith, Michael P.

N1 - ©2026. The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PY - 2026/6/3

Y1 - 2026/6/3

N2 - Small, frequent calving events dominate the behavior of most Arctic marine‐terminating glaciers,yet their oceanographic impacts remain largely unquantified. We present the first direct observations of internalwaves generated by modest ice‐fall calving at Kronebreen, Svalbard. High‐resolution current meter andmicrostructure measurements show that each event excites weakly nonlinear multi‐modal internal wave packetswith ∼4 m vertical displacements and mode 1 propagation speeds of 0.35–0.42 ms

AB - Small, frequent calving events dominate the behavior of most Arctic marine‐terminating glaciers,yet their oceanographic impacts remain largely unquantified. We present the first direct observations of internalwaves generated by modest ice‐fall calving at Kronebreen, Svalbard. High‐resolution current meter andmicrostructure measurements show that each event excites weakly nonlinear multi‐modal internal wave packetswith ∼4 m vertical displacements and mode 1 propagation speeds of 0.35–0.42 ms

KW - internal waves

KW - arctic

KW - fjords

KW - calving

KW - glaciers

KW - melt

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DO - 10.1029/2026GL122121

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JO - GEOPHYS RES LETT

JF - GEOPHYS RES LETT

IS - 11

M1 - GRL72671

ER -

Glacial Ice Front Calving: Internal Wave Generation and Melting

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