Simulating melt, runoff and refreezing on Nordenskiöldbreen, Svalbard, using a coupled snow and energy balance model

Pelt, Ward van; Oerlemans, J.; Reijmer, C. H.; Pohjola, Veijo; Pettersson, Rickard; Angelen, J. H. van

doi:10.5194/tc-6-641-2012

Cited by 115 publications

(173 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Melting of the snow cover is an important process shaping the glacier mass balance (Bruland and Hagen 2002;Hagen et al 2003;Sobota 2011Sobota , 2013van Pelt et al 2012). The variability of the snow cover in the summer period and the outflow of meltwater on the glaciers of the southern Spitsbergen were presented by Głowicki (1975), Baranowski (1977), Leszkiewicz (1987), Jania (1988Jania ( , 1994, Jania and Hagen (1996), Bartoszewski (1998) and Pälli et al (2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of snowpack internal structure on snow metamorphism and melting intensity on Hansbreen, Svalbard

Laska¹,

Luks²,

Budzik³

2016

Polish Polar Research

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This paper presents a detailed study of melting processes conducted on Hansbreen -a tidewater glacier terminating in the Hornsund fjord, Spitsbergen. The fieldwork was carried out from April to July 2010. The study included observations of meltwater distribution within snow profiles in different locations and determination of its penetration time to the glacier ice surface. In addition, the variability of the snow temperature and heat transfer within the snow cover were measured. The main objective concerns the impact of meltwater on the diversity of physical characteristics of the snow cover and its melting dynamics. The obtained results indicate a time delay between the beginning of the melting processes and meltwater reaching the ice surface. The time necessary for meltwater to percolate through the entire snowpack in both, the ablation zone and the equilibrium line zone amounted to c. 12 days, despite a much greater snow depth at the upper site. An elongated retention of meltwater in the lower part of the glacier was caused by a higher amount of icy layers (ice formations and melt-freeze crusts), resulting from winter thaws, which delayed water penetration. For this reason, a reconstruction of rain-on-snow events was carried out. Such results give new insight into the processes of the reactivation of the glacier drainage system and the release of freshwater into the sea after the winter period.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of snowpack internal structure on snow metamorphism and melting intensity on Hansbreen, Svalbard

Laska¹,

Luks²,

Budzik³

2016

Polish Polar Research

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“…A more realistic water model, incorporating a Darcian transport scheme, surface to bed transport and a transient transmissivity of the system, would be needed to realistically simulate water transport and seasonal variability in water layer thickness and pressures, which is beyond the scope of this work. The connection between water layer thickness, water pressure and the basal shear stress follows the description of Bueler and Brown (2009) and Van Pelt and Oerlemans (2012). A pseudo-plastic formulation for the basal shear stress τ b as a function of the basal sliding velocity u b and W. J. J. van Pelt et al: An inverse method to estimate basal topography 989 the yield stress τ c is used:…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both the mass balance and subsurface temperature depend on air temperature and accumulation. A coupled distributed energy balance-snow model, presented in Van Pelt et al (2012), solves the surface energy budget and simulates melt water percolation, refreezing and runoff in the firn pack. The coupled model is applied to the grid of Nordenskiöldbreen to quantify the mass balance and subsurface temperature sensitivity by performing multiple model experiments with perturbed accumulation and air temperature over the period 1989-2010.…”

Section: Climate Forcingmentioning

confidence: 99%

An iterative inverse method to estimate basal topography and initialize ice flow models

et al. 2013

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Abstract.We evaluate an inverse approach to reconstruct distributed bedrock topography and simultaneously initialize an ice flow model. The inverse method involves an iterative procedure in which an ice dynamical model (PISM) is run multiple times over a prescribed period, while being forced with space-and time-dependent climate input. After every iteration bed heights are adjusted using information of the remaining misfit between observed and modeled surface topography. The inverse method is first applied in synthetic experiments with a constant climate forcing to verify convergence and robustness of the approach in three dimensions. In a next step, the inverse approach is applied to Nordenskiöldbreen, Svalbard, forced with height-and timedependent climate input since 1300 AD. An L-curve stopping criterion is used to prevent overfitting. Validation against radar data reveals a high correlation (up to R = 0.89) between modeled and observed thicknesses. Remaining uncertainties can mainly be ascribed to inaccurate model physics, in particular, uncertainty in the description of sliding. Results demonstrate the applicability of this inverse method to reconstruct the ice thickness distribution of glaciers and ice caps. In addition to reconstructing bedrock topography, the method provides a direct tool to initialize ice flow models for forecasting experiments.

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“…Nordenskiöldbreen has been the subject of a number of glaciological (Den Ouden et al, 2010;Hagen, Eiken, Kohler, & Melvold, 2005;Rachlewicz et al, 2007;Van Pelt et al, 2012, 2014 and geomorphological (Boulton, 1970(Boulton, , 1976Kłysz, 1988;Kłysz, Lindner, Marks, & Wysokiński, 1989;Slater, 1925;Stacke, Mida, Lehejček, Tóthová, & Nývlt, 2013;Strzelecki, 2011) studies, including some geomorphological mapping (Karczewski et al, 1990;Kłysz et al, 1989) (Baeten, Forwick, Vogt, & Vorren, 2010;Plassen, Vorren, & Forwick, 2004;Szczuciński, Zajączkowski, & Scholten, 2009). However, most of the previous work concentrated on the northern margin, and so far no coherent map of glacial geomorphology has been produced for both terrestrial parts of the foreland and hence no comparison has been made between the landform signatures of these two clearly contrasting parts of the snout.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Glacial geomorphology of the terrestrial margins of the tidewater glacier, Nordenskiöldbreen, Svalbard

2016

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A 1:4000 scale map of the terrestrial margins of the foreland of Nordenskiöldbreen depicts a polythermal glacial landsystem containing a record of the landform signatures of individual ice flow units that operate within the glacier snout. A 1:700 map provides a detailed overview of fluted terrain, based on unmanned aerial vehicle images captured in 2014. The pattern of landforms lying inside the Little Ice Age (LIA) latero-frontal moraine on the northern side of the fjord comprises a fluted till surface, which in turn grades into icemoulded bedrock. This signature records the recession of a single, wide ice flow unit, which was characterised by limited incorporation of subglacial material and restricted delivery of supraglacial debris. Inside the latero-frontal moraine on the south side of the fjord, a fluted surface is subordinate to a pronounced and large ice-cored moraine complex related to the confluence of five narrower ice flow units, each of which transported significant quantities of englacial and supraglacial debris at their suture zones as a series of longitudinal debris stripes. The suite of foreland landforms is diagnostic of both temperate subglacial and frozen-snout conditions, indicating the operation of a warm polythermal glacier fed by multiple flow units during the LIA. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Simulating melt, runoff and refreezing on Nordenskiöldbreen, Svalbard, using a coupled snow and energy balance model

Cited by 115 publications

References 64 publications

Influence of snowpack internal structure on snow metamorphism and melting intensity on Hansbreen, Svalbard

Influence of snowpack internal structure on snow metamorphism and melting intensity on Hansbreen, Svalbard

An iterative inverse method to estimate basal topography and initialize ice flow models

Glacial geomorphology of the terrestrial margins of the tidewater glacier, Nordenskiöldbreen, Svalbard

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