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Ice Sheet Calving Front — Plan-View Grounding Line Map

2D plan-view (map) model of a marine ice sheet: a grid of grounded/floating ice cells evolves under mass conservation and Glen's-law flow, the grounding line is traced every frame from the flotation criterion, and a channelized ice stream calves an irregular tabular-iceberg front.

Climate, Ecology & Environment2DAdvanced60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This is a top-down, plan-view grid model of a marine-terminating ice sheet, solved with the same mass-conservation, Glen's-law flow, flotation-criterion grounding line and Schoof-style grounding-line discharge as the 3D flowline version — but computed independently along every row of a 2D grid rather than as a single cross-section. A channelized lateral drag profile (fast central ice stream, slower drag-braked margins) makes the grounding line and calving front curve realistically across the width instead of running straight, so retreat on a retrograde bed shows up as an accelerating, embayment-shaped map rather than a single migrating line.

⚙ Under the hood

A 2D plan-view (map) grid model of a marine-terminating ice sheet: grounded/floating state is set every cell by the Archimedes flotation criterion, ice thickness evolves under Glen's-law diffusion and a Schoof-style grounding-line export flux, and a channelized lateral drag profile (fast central ice stream, drag-braked margins) bends the grounding line and calving front into a curved, embayment-like shape — the same Marine Ice Sheet Instability physics as the 3D flowline model, computed independently across a full width instead of a single cross-section.

glaciologyice sheetcalvinggrounding lineclimateAntarcticaplan view

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install