Table 1.
Borehole / subglacial lake |
Latitude (°N) |
Longitude (°W) |
Ice thickness (m) |
Basal temperature obs. / correcteda (°C) |
Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Boreholes Interior |
|||||
Camp Century | 77.18 | 61.13 | 1387 | −13.0 / −11.8 | Weertman [1968] |
DYE-3 | 65.18 | 43.82 | 2037 | −13.2 / −11.4 | Gundestrup and Hansen [1984] |
GISP2 | 72.60 | 38.50 | 3053 | −9.2 / −6.6 | Cuffey et al. [1995] |
GRIP | 72.58 | 37.64 | 3029 | −8.6 / −6.0 | Bender et al. [2010] |
NEEM | 77.45 | 51.06 | 2538b | −3.5 / −1.3 | MacGregor et al. [2015b]c |
NorthGRIP | 75.10 | 42.32 | 3085 | ~ −2.3 / 0 | Dahl-Jensen et al. [2003]d |
Southwestern margin |
|||||
Swiss Camp | 69.57 | 49.28 | N/A | T | Thomsen et al. [1991] |
Jakobshavn Isbræ |
~69.19 | ~48.77 | 1540– 1630 |
−1.1 / 0 | Iken et al. [1993] |
Jakobshavn Isbræ |
69.24 | 48.69 | 830 | −0.6 / 0 | Lüthi et al. [2002] |
Paakitsoq | 69.45 | 49.88 | 614–624 | −0.5 / 0 | Lüthi et al. [2015] |
Isunnguata Sermia |
~67.19 | ~49.52 | 92–821 | −0.7 – −0.1 / 0 | Harrington et al. [2015] |
Peripheral ice caps |
|||||
Renland | 71.30 | 26.72 | 324 | F | Hansson [1994] |
Hans Tausen | 82.50 | 37.52 | 345 | F | Madsen and Thorsteinsson [2001] |
Flade Isblink | 81.29 | 15.70 | 540 | F | Lemark [2010] |
Subglacial lakes | |||||
Northwestern margin |
~77.92 | ~68.89 | 757–809 | T | Palmer et al. [2013] |
Southwestern margin |
67.61 | 48.69 | 1200 | T | Howat et al. [2015] |
Flade Isblink | 81.16 | 16.58 | 540 | T | Willis et al. [2015] |
“corrected” means corrected for pressure-melting using local ice thickness. Where basal temperatures were not measured directly but confidently inferred, we give the basal thermal state as either frozen (F) or thawed (T).
Note that ice thickness at NEEM was reported incorrectly by MacGregor et al. [2015a,b] as 2561 m.
The deepest measured temperature was −3.56°C at 2537.36 m. An additional 0.63 m of silty ice was drilled following this measurement, resulting in an extrapolated basal temperature of −3.54°C.
Dahl-Jensen et al. [2003] estimated a basal temperature of −2.4°C based on the deepest measured temperature available at the time (−7.8°C at 2880 m). Following further drilling, the temperature measured at 2992.6 m was −5.17°C. Drilling eventually reached the bed but the basal temperature was not measured there. Here we use the newer, deeper temperature measurement and the observed vertical temperature gradient (31 mK m−1) to estimate the basal temperature.