Challenges of a Mathematical Numerical Model for the Flow of a Rock Glacier

Up-to-date computational glaciology is very often basing its investigations about glacier flow on the intensive use of the large amount of data, gathered in (alpine or polar) on-field campaigns, and on the "brute force" adaptation of the Glen's law via phenomenological multi-parametrical functional factors and/or addenda. Although, reasonable to fully satisfactory numerical results have been being obtained with this approach adopted by the most popular open-source computational glaciology codes, a modelling effort is worth in order to include the normal stress gradient effects which are not covered by such a power law model and are indeed physically significant in the case of moraine ice and rock glaciers. In this trend Kannan, Mansutti and Rajagopal have proposed (2021) a mathematical numerical model which has been successfully challenged on the reproduction of borehole deformation measurements of the Murtel-Corvatsch rock glacier on the Grisons Alps, Switzerland. This case, and possibly other numerical results at the present time in progress, will be discussed.