Large-scale force budget of an outlet glacier: Jutulstraumen, Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica

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Abstract
A large-scale force budget was applied using a combination of remote-sensing and field data from Jutulstraumen, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. In the grounded area, more than 95 % of ice flow is balanced by basal friction. In a partly floating section near the grounding-line area, on average lateral drag provides 38% of resistance to flow. Measurement uncertainties were propagated through the calculation of forces. The accuracies of strain rates derived from satellite data (Landsat thematic mapper) were found adequate to calculate meaningful force-balance terms. For the floating section, where lateral forces contribute to controlling flow, the main contribution to errors in the force budget is uncertainty in the rate factor for the flow law of ice. For grounded sections, the uncertainty in ice thickness, as measured by ground-penetrating radar, contributes more or less equally to errors in the force budget as does that in the rate factor.