Estimating effective elasticity in grounding zones of the Ross Ice Shelf with tidal flexure from ICESat-2
Meyer, Colin R.
The grounding zones of Antarctic ice shelves are among the continent’s most dynamic regions, where floating ice shelves buttress grounded upstream ice and tidal forcing drives cyclic flexure at the ice–ocean–bed interface. We use ICESat-2 altimetry and airborne ice-penetrating radar to constrain the effective Young’s modulus E* of ice in the flexure zone at three sites on the Ross Ice Shelf. By modeling ice as an elastic beam of variable thickness, we infer a single effective elastic parameter,