Subglacial Lake Outburst: Channel Drainage Dynamics

Beneath thick ice sheets and glaciers, lakes of liquid water can pool at the bed, insulated from the surface and pressurized by hundreds of metres of overlying ice. When a basal fracture connects such a lake to the subglacial drainage network, the water doesn't just trickle out — it carves and enlarges a Röthlisberger channel through viscous-dissipation melting faster than ice creep can close it, producing a runaway flood known as a jökulhlaup. This simulation solves that channel's cross-sectional area and the lake's water balance as coupled ordinary differential equations, cross-sections the ice sheet in 3D so you can watch the channel widen and the flow accelerate, and renders the shallow surface subsidence bowl that lets satellites detect these events from orbit. Adjust ice thickness, channel slope, and meltwater recharge, then trigger an outburst and watch the hydrograph rise, peak, and shut itself off exactly as theory predicts.