Accurate and stable time stepping in ice sheet modeling

In this paper we introduce adaptive time step control for simulation of the evolution of ice sheets. The discretization error in the approximations is estimated using “Milne's device” by comparing the result from two different methods in a predictor-corrector pair. Using a predictor-corrector pair the expensive part of the procedure, the solution of the velocity and pressure equations, is performed only once per time step and an estimate of the local error is easily obtained. The stability of the numerical solution is maintained and the accuracy is controlled by keeping the local error below a given threshold using PI-control. Depending on the threshold, the time step Δt is bound by stability requirements or accuracy requirements. Our method takes a shorter Δt than an implicit method but with less work in each time step and the solver is simpler. The method is analyzed theoretically with respect to stability and applied to the simulation of a 2D ice slab and a 3D circular ice sheet. The stability bounds in the experiments are explained by and agree well with the theoretical results.