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Numerical simulation of the motion of a two‐dimensional glacier
Author(s) -
Picasso Marco,
Rappaz Jacques,
Reist Adrian,
Funk Martin,
Blatter Heinz
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
international journal for numerical methods in engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.421
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1097-0207
pISSN - 0029-5981
DOI - 10.1002/nme.997
Subject(s) - glacier , compressibility , vector field , geology , finite element method , motion (physics) , newtonian fluid , field (mathematics) , mathematics , mathematical analysis , mechanics , geometry , classical mechanics , physics , geomorphology , pure mathematics , thermodynamics
The motion of a two‐dimensional glacier is considered. At each time step, given the shape of the glacier, ice is modelled as an incompressible non‐Newtonian fluid and a non‐linear elliptic problem has to be solved to obtain the horizontal velocity field. Then, the upper surface of the glacier is updated by solving a transport equation. Finite element techniques are used to compute the velocity field whereas the transport equation is solved using a Lax–Wendroff scheme. Numerical results are compared to experiments on Gries glacier (Wallis, Switzerland) between 1961 and 1991. Then, a predition for 2021 is proposed. Copyright 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.