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Modeling Glacier and Ice-shelf Flow and Fracture Processes using Computation, Data, and Machine Learning

1

Ravindra Duddu The-do

Associate Professor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

USACM Earth & Energy Systems Webinar

January 22, 2024

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  • Introduction

  • Propagation of water-filled crevasses
    • Phase field fracture model
    • Cohesive zone model

  • Hydraulic fracture of glaciers
    • Two-scale flow-fracture model
    • Application to Greenland lake drainage event

  • Rift propagation in shallow ice shelves
    • Nonlocal continuum damage model
    • Application to Larsen C ice shelf calving event

  • Conclusion

2

Outline

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Acknowledgement

3

Grads

Undergrads

High-school

Postdocs

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4

References

  1. Duddu, R., & Waisman, H., Mechanics of Materials, 2012.
  2. Duddu, R., & Waisman, H., Computational Mechanics, 2013.
  3. Duddu, R., J. N. Bassis, & Waisman, H., Geophysical Research Letters, 2013.
  4. Duddu, R., & Waisman, H., Journal of Glaciology, 2013.
  5. Mobasher, M. E., Duddu, R., Bassis, J. N., & Waisman, H., Journal of Glaciology, 2016.
  6. Jimenez, S., Duddu, R., & Bassis, J. N., Computer. Methods in Applied. Mechanics. and Engineering, 2017
  7. Jimenez, S., & Duddu, R., Journal of Glaciology, 2018
  8. Duddu, R., Jimenez, S., & Bassis, J. N., Journal of Glaciology, 2020
  9. Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2021, Part I
  10. Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2021, Part II
  11. Sun, X., Hirshikesh & Duddu, R., Extreme Mechanics Letters, 2021
  12. Clayton, T., Duddu, R., Siegert, M., & Martinez-Paneda, E., Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 2022
  13. Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Glaciology, 2023
  14. Gao, Y., Ghosh, G., Jimenez, S., & Duddu, R., Computing in Science and Engineering, 2023
  15. Bassis, J. N. et al., Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2024

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Glaciers and Ice Sheets Are a Key Part of the Climate and Earth System

Alters the solid earth

Storage of freshwater around the world

Fixture of ecosystems and habitats

Affects ocean circulation

Courtesy: Meghana Raganathan, Georgia Tech.

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Antarctic Ice Sheet Fracture and Sea Level Rise

Antarctic ice sheet bedrock elevation map

(Source: BEDMAP 2 British Antarctic Survey)

  • The Antarctic ice sheet is comprised of

27 million km3 of ice, with a sea level

equivalent of ~ 58 m [Fretwell et al., 2013]

  • Calving from Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves due to fracturing is responsible for almost half of the mass lost, with the other half occurring from basal melting [Rignot et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2015]

  • Frequency of calving events increased in recent years – Larsen C (2017), Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites (2018-2021), Amery (2018), Conger (2022) [Lhermitte et al., 2020; Mitcham et al., 2022]

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Consequences of Sea Level Rise in the Coming Centuries

Landmarks around the world under two different global warming scenarios 

Energy and environmental choices in this decade could set the destination, but the timing of rise is more difficult to project using models.

Sea levels may take hundreds of years to be fully realized.

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Bassis, J.N., Crawford, A., Kachuck, S. B., Benn, D. I., Walker, C., Millstein, J., Duddu, R., Åström, J., Fricker, H., Luckman, A. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 2024 52:1

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Rifts – horizontal fractures

(Larsen C ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula)

 Crevasses – vertical fractures

(Ross ice shelf, West Antarctica)

Classification of Fractures in Glaciers and Ice Shelves

Objective: To understand fracture propagation in relation to viscous creep deformation, material state and damage evolution.

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Fracture-mechanics-based Crevasse Models

  • Zero-stress [Nye, 1957; Jezek, 1984; Nick et al., 2010; Sun et al., 2017]
    • Describes calving of glacier or ice shelf with quasi-uniform field of closely-spaced crevasses

  • Linear elastic fracture mechanics [Weertman, 1973; van der Veen, 1998; Krug et al, 2014; Yu et al., 2017]
    • Describes calving of glacier or ice shelf with isolated or widely-spaced crevasses

  • Continuum damage mechanics [Pralong and Funk, 2005; Duddu and Waisman, 2013; Borstad et al., 2012, Keller and Hutter, 2014, Duddu et al., 2020, Sun et al., 2021]
    • Describes calving of glacier or ice shelf with closely-or widely-spaced water-filled crevasses
    • Suitable for any glacier geometry and boundary condition (e.g., floating and grounded)
    • Enables efficient parametrization of calving in ice sheet models over longer times scales?

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  • Introduction

  • Propagation of water-filled crevasses
    • Phase field fracture model
    • Cohesive zone model

  • Hydraulic fracture of glaciers
    • Two-scale flow-fracture model
    • Application to Greenland lake drainage event

  • Rift propagation in shallow ice shelves
    • Nonlocal continuum damage model
    • Application to Larsen C ice shelf calving event

  • Conclusion

11

Outline

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Stress-based Poro-Damage Phase Field Model

  • Momentum balance

 

  • Poro-damage approximation

 

 

Surface crevasse

Basal crevasse

 

  • Elastic-viscoplastic constitutive law

 

 

Viscoplastic (Glen’s law)

 

 

Elastic (Hooke’s law)

Inertia is negligible if quasi-static

Sun, X., Duddu, R., and Hirshikesh (2021) Extreme Mechanics Letters

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Strain-energy-based Poro-Damage Phase Field Model

  • Phase field evolution equation
  • Crack driving force

Sun, X., Duddu, R., and Hirshikesh (2021) Extreme Mechanics Letters

 

 

Viscous regularization

Compressible elastic,

Tension-compression asymmetry,

Quasi-static hydrofracture

Plane strain [Lo et al., 2019]

Handles compressive states due to self weight

  • Tensile strain energy decomposition

 

 

If

then

elseif

then

else

 

 

 

[Angelillo et al., 2010]

(III)

(II)

(II)

(I)

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Stress-based Poro-Damage Phase Field Model

  • Phase field evolution equation
  • Crack driving force

Clayton, T., Duddu R., Siegert, M., and Martínez-Pañeda, E. (2022) Engrg. Frac. Mech.

Positive principal stress

Rankine-type failure

 

 

  • Principal stress-based criterion

 

Damage irreversibility

Incompressibility

Tension-compression asymmetry

Viscous Stokes flow

Quasi-static hydrofracture

No viscous term

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Evaluation of Stress Intensity Factor in LEFM Models

  • Net stress on the crack walls with hydraulic pressure (superposition principle)
  • Far-field longitudinal Cauchy stress (analytical solution)
  • Stress intensity factor using the weight function method (linear elastic) [Rice, 1972; Petroski and Achenback, 1978]
  • Weight function for “double edge crack” (free basal slip) [Tada et al., 1985]

Jimenez and Duddu, Journal of Glaciology, 64(247): 759-770, 2018

Superposition of linear elastic stress fields

Central through crack

Double edge crack

Single edge crack

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Single Surface Crevasse in a Grounded Glacier

Free slip at the base, isothermal conditions

A prior adaptive finite element mesh with bilinear quadrilateral, 8 elements within damage length scale

 

 

 

LEFM

Phase-field

Clayton, T., Duddu R., Siegert, M., and Martínez-Pañeda, E. (2022) Engrg. Frac. Mech.

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Multiple Surface Crevasses in a Grounded Glacier

Free slip at the base, isothermal conditions

A prior adaptive finite element mesh with bilinear quadrilateral, 8 elements within damage length scale

 

 

 

Zero stress

Phase-field

Clayton, T., Duddu R., Siegert, M., and Martínez-Pañeda, E. (2022) Engrg. Frac. Mech.

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Two Surface Crevasses in a Grounded Glacier

 

Crevasses propagate both vertically and horizontally, first move away from each other and then coalesce

Clayton, T., Duddu R., Siegert, M., and Martínez-Pañeda, E. (2022) Engrg. Frac. Mech.

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A poro-damage cohesive zone model for hydrofracture

Gao, Y., Ghosh, G., Jimenez, S., & Duddu, R., Computing in Science and Engineering, 2023

Mixed mode fracture

Creep deformation

Hydrofracture

Depth dependent material properties

Traction-separation law

Water pressure in crevasses

Data extracted from ice core specimens from the Ronne ice shelf by Rist et al. (2002)

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Calving outcomes can be altered due to ice density variations

Depth varying density and temperature promote surface crevasse propagation

Ice sheet models must appropriately parameterize the effects of variable ice density, in addition to temperature.

Water-filled surface crevasses in ice shelves

Gao, Y., Ghosh, G., Jimenez, S., & Duddu, R., Computing in Science and Engineering, 2023

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  • Introduction

  • Propagation of water-filled crevasses
    • Phase field fracture model
    • Cohesive zone model

  • Hydraulic fracture of glaciers
    • Two-scale flow-fracture model
    • Application to Greenland lake drainage event

  • Rift propagation in shallow ice shelves
    • Nonlocal continuum damage model
    • Application to Larsen C ice shelf calving event

  • Conclusion

22

Outline

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Model Assumptions

 

Hageman, T., Mejia, J.Z., Duddu, R., and Martínez-Pañeda, E. (to be submitted)

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Two-scale Model Formulation

 

 

 

Glacier-scale governing equations

Fracture-scale governing equations

 

 

 

 

Momentum balance

Stress-strain relation

Viscous strain rate

(Glen’s law)

Mass balance

Fracture aperture relation

Thermal equilibrium

Fracture aperture relation

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Cohesive fracture model

Decoupled solution strategy

 

 

 

Solid stress related to fluid pressure

Exponential traction-separation law for mode I fracture

Two-scale Model Formulation

 

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A rapid lake drainage event in Greenland (Das, 2008)

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Geometric parameters:

 

Parameters used for comparison with observations:

Out-of-plane width

Glacier thickness

Glacier length

Mesh size

Surface area of lake

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Depth varying temperature, viscosity and strength

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The temperature profile is obtained from borehole measurements of Ryser et al. (2014)

 

Glen’s Law creep coefficient:

 

Tensile strength (Litwin et al., 2012):

 

Temperature also directly included in freezing/melting process

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Effect of rheology on hydraulic fracture propagation

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Vertical fracture filled with water propagates faster with linear-elastic rheology, although water is transferred more effectively with visco-plastic rheology.

The vertical fracture closes due to the bending moment in the linear elastic case, as ice penetrates the bedrock (about 0.2 m)

Displacements magnified by x1000

Linear-elastic rheology

Linear-elastic visco-plastic rheology

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Crack opening and Vertical Displacement

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Linear-elastic rheology

Linear-elastic visco-plastic rheology

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  • Introduction

  • Propagation of water-filled crevasses
    • Phase field fracture model
    • Cohesive zone model

  • Hydraulic fracture of glaciers
    • Two-scale flow-fracture model
    • Application to Greenland lake drainage event

  • Rift propagation in shallow ice shelves
    • Nonlocal continuum damage model
    • Application to Larsen C ice shelf calving event

  • Conclusion

30

Outline

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Modeling Antarctic Glacier and Ice-shelf Calving and Stability (MAGICS)

Challenge: How can we model the fracture of viscous fluid-like material on long time scales?

Common framework needs to:

  • handle large deformations
  • maintain sharp edges while advecting the damage variable
  • track grounding line, ice front, and thickness

Updated Lagrangian or Material Point Method

Jimenez, S., Duddu, R., & Bassis, J. N., Computer. Methods in Applied. Mechanics. and Engineering, 2017

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The Generalized Interpolation Material Point Method (GI-MPM)

The GI-MPM with SSA formulation can track grounding line, ice front, and thickness

Huth, A. (2020) A generalized interpolation material point method and anisotropic creep damage model for shallow ice shelves Ph. D. Thesis, University of Washington.

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Simulation of Marine Ice Sheet Fracture with the GI-MPM

Anisotropic damage models predict more realistic rift propagation paths in ice shelves

MISMIP+

Pine Island Glacier

Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2021, Part I

Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2021, Part II

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Inverse Modeling and Data Assimilation for Larsen C Ice Shelf Calving

Variable

Source

Velocity

2015 Landsat-8 mosaic (Pope, 2016)/

NASA Measures (Rignot et al., 2017)

Ice shelf thickness

Cryosat-2, swath processed (Smith et al. 2017)

Bed elevation,

grounded ice thickness

Bedmap2 (Fretwell et al., 2013)

Surface temperature

RACMO2.3 (Van Wessam et al., 2015)

Surface mass balance

RACMO2.3 (Van Wessam et al., 2015)

Geothermal heat flow

Satellite magnetic data (Fox-Maule et al., 2005)

Huth, A., Duddu, R., Smith, B., and Sergienko, O. (2023), Journal of Glaciology.

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Simulation of Larsen C Ice-shelf Fracture with the GI-MPM

Initialization of ice shelf viscosity and damage is key to simulating rift propagation

November 2017, four months after calving of iceberg A-68

Larsen C ice shelf on December 3, 2017, before rift propagation

Huth, A., Duddu, R., Smith, B., and Sergienko, O. (2023), Journal of Glaciology.

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Rift path is sensitive to mélange and rift wall contact assumptions

Rift is fully closed

No residual ice strength

Rift is partially closed

Some residual ice strength

Huth, A., Duddu, R., Smith, B., and Sergienko, O. (2023), Journal of Glaciology.

Processes controlling ice shelf rift paths

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  • Introduction

  • Propagation of water-filled crevasses
    • Phase field fracture model
    • Cohesive zone model

  • Hydraulic fracture of glaciers
    • Two-scale flow-fracture model
    • Application to Greenland lake drainage event

  • Rift propagation in shallow ice shelves
    • Nonlocal continuum damage model
    • Application to Larsen C ice shelf calving event

  • Conclusion

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Outline

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Summary

  1. The poro-damage phase-field and cohesive zone models can predict crevasse depths considering nonlinear effects

  • Depth varying temperature and density influence ice stiffness and strength and increase hydrofracture vulnerability of ice shelves.

  • The two-scale model can capture hydraulic fracture propagation observed in Greenland glaciers and highlights the importance of viscous processes

  • Continuum damage mechanics implemented at the ice shelf scale provides a robust approach to model flow and fracture of ice shelves.

  • The anisotropic creep damage model, when tuned to observations, can reproduce the A-68 iceberg calving event from Larsen C ice shelf

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  • Unrealistic floating ice tongues are using existing empirical ice fracture schemes
  • Machine learning surrogates for multiscale-damage evolution hold promise

Community Ice Sheet Model – Community Earth System Model

Modeling Antarctic Ice Sheet Evolution Over Long Timescales

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Machine Learning for Crevasse Identification and Inverse Estimation

U-Net architecture (Lai et al. (2020)

Crop

Opportunity: spatio-temporal maps of crevasses and rifts across Antarctica

Challenge: training data set generation, accuracy, advection of crevasses/rifts, depth of crevasses, rift boundary conditions

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An Adaptive FEM for Phase Field Fracture in FEniCS

We developed open-source FEniCS programs adhering to FAIR principles

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Collaborative Research: GEO OSE Track 1: Advanced cloud-based Data- and Visualization-Integrated Simulation EnviRonment (ADVISER) to Advance Computational Glaciology

To democratize the power of cloud computing and share its benefits with those who have little or no expertise in the cloud.

FEniCS/Firedrake workshop and ADVISER Hackathon to be announced later this year.

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References

  1. Duddu, R., & Waisman, H., Mechanics of Materials, 2012.
  2. Duddu, R., & Waisman, H., Computational Mechanics, 2013.
  3. Duddu, R., J. N. Bassis, & Waisman, H., Geophysical Research Letters, 2013.
  4. Duddu, R., & Waisman, H., Journal of Glaciology, 2013.
  5. Mobasher, M. E., Duddu, R., Bassis, J. N., & Waisman, H., Journal of Glaciology, 2016.
  6. Jimenez, S., Duddu, R., & Bassis, J. N., Computer. Methods in Applied. Mechanics. and Engineering, 2017
  7. Jimenez, S., & Duddu, R., Journal of Glaciology, 2018
  8. Duddu, R., Jimenez, S., & Bassis, J. N., Journal of Glaciology, 2020
  9. Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2021, Part I
  10. Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2021, Part II
  11. Sun, X., Hirshikesh & Duddu, R., Extreme Mechanics Letters, 2021
  12. Clayton, T., Duddu, R., Siegert, M., & Martinez-Paneda, E., Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 2022
  13. Huth, A., Duddu, R., & Smith, B. E., Journal of Glaciology, 2023
  14. Gao, Y., Ghosh, G., Jimenez, S., & Duddu, R., Computing in Science and Engineering, 2023
  15. Bassis, J. N. et al., Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2024