| 1. |
- Abbasi, Rasha, et al.
(författare)
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In situ estimation of ice crystal properties at the South Pole using LED calibration data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
- 2024
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus Publications. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 18:1, s. 75-102
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The IceCube Neutrino Observatory instruments about 1 km 3 of deep, glacial ice at the geographic South Pole. It uses 5160 photomultipliers to detect Cherenkov light emitted by charged relativistic particles. An unexpected light propagation effect observed by the experiment is an anisotropic attenuation, which is aligned with the local flow direction of the ice. We examine birefringent light propagation through the polycrystalline ice microstructure as a possible explanation for this effect. The predictions of a first-principles model developed for this purpose, in particular curved light trajectories resulting from asymmetric diffusion, provide a qualitatively good match to the main features of the data. This in turn allows us to deduce ice crystal properties. Since the wavelength of the detected light is short compared to the crystal size, these crystal properties include not only the crystal orientation fabric, but also the average crystal size and shape, as a function of depth. By adding small empirical corrections to this first-principles model, a quantitatively accurate description of the optical properties of the IceCube glacial ice is obtained. In this paper, we present the experimental signature of ice optical anisotropy observed in IceCube light-emitting diode (LED) calibration data, the theory and parameterization of the birefringence effect, the fitting procedures of these parameterizations to experimental data, and the inferred crystal properties.
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| 2. |
- Andresen, Christian G., et al.
(författare)
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Soil moisture and hydrology projections of the permafrost region-a model intercomparison
- 2020
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Ingår i: Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416. ; 14:2, s. 445-459
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigates and compares soil moisture and hydrology projections of broadly used land models with permafrost processes and highlights the causes and impacts of permafrost zone soil moisture projections. Climate models project warmer temperatures and increases in precipitation (P) which will intensify evapotranspiration (ET) and runoff in land models. However, this study shows that most models project a long-term drying of the surface soil (0-20 cm) for the permafrost region despite increases in the net air-surface water flux (P-ET). Drying is generally explained by infiltration of moisture to deeper soil layers as the active layer deepens or permafrost thaws completely. Although most models agree on drying, the projections vary strongly in magnitude and spatial pattern. Land models tend to agree with decadal runoff trends but underestimate runoff volume when compared to gauge data across the major Arctic river basins, potentially indicating model structural limitations. Coordinated efforts to address the ongoing challenges presented in this study will help reduce uncertainty in our capability to predict the future Arctic hydrological state and associated land-atmosphere biogeochemical processes across spatial and temporal scales.
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| 3. |
- Applegate, Patrick J., et al.
(författare)
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An assessment of key model parametric uncertainties in projections of Greenland ice sheet behavior
- 2012
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 6:3, s. 589-606
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lack of knowledge about the values of ice sheet model input parameters introduces substantial uncertainty into projections of Greenland Ice Sheet contributions to future sea level rise. Computer models of ice sheet behavior provide one of several means of estimating future sea level rise due to mass loss from ice sheets. Such models have many input parameters whose values are not well known. Recent studies have investigated the effects of these parameters on model output, but the range of potential future sea level increases due to model parametric uncertainty has not been characterized. Here, we demonstrate that this range is large, using a 100-member perturbed-physics ensemble with the SICOPOLIS ice sheet model. Each model run is spun up over 125 000 yr using geological forcings and subsequently driven into the future using an asymptotically increasing air temperature anomaly curve. All modeled ice sheets lose mass after 2005 AD. Parameters controlling surface melt dominate the model response to temperature change. After culling the ensemble to include only members that give reasonable ice volumes in 2005 AD, the range of projected sea level rise values in 2100 AD is similar to 40 % or more of the median. Data on past ice sheet behavior can help reduce this uncertainty, but none of our ensemble members produces a reasonable ice volume change during the mid-Holocene, relative to the present. This problem suggests that the model's exponential relation between temperature and precipitation does not hold during the Holocene, or that the central-Greenland temperature forcing curve used to drive the model is not representative of conditions around the ice margin at this time (among other possibilities). Our simulations also lack certain observed physical processes that may tend to enhance the real ice sheet's response. Regardless, this work has implications for other studies that use ice sheet models to project or hindcast the behavior of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
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| 4. |
- Bartels-Rausch, T., et al.
(författare)
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Interfacial supercooling and the precipitation of hydrohalite in frozen NaCl solutions as seen by X-ray absorption spectroscopy
- 2021
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Ingår i: Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416. ; 15:4, s. 2001-2020
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Laboratory experiments are presented on the phase change at the surface of sodium chloride-water mixtures at temperatures between 259 and 241 K. Chloride is a ubiquitous component of polar coastal surface snow. The chloride embedded in snow is involved in reactions that modify the chemical composition of snow as well as ultimately impact the budget of trace gases and the oxidative capacity of the overlying atmosphere. Multiphase reactions at the snow-air interface have been of particular interest in atmospheric science. Undoubtedly, chemical reactions proceed faster in liquids than in solids; but it is currently unclear when such phase changes occur at the interface of snow with air. In the experiments reported here, a high selectivity to the upper few nanometres of the frozen solution-air interface is achieved by using electron yield near-edge X-ray absorption fine-structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy. We find that sodium chloride at the interface of frozen solutions, which mimic sea-salt deposits in snow, remains as supercooled liquid down to 241 K. At this temperature, hydrohalite exclusively precipitates and anhydrous sodium chloride is not detected. In this work, we present the first NEXAFS spectrum of hydrohalite. The hydrohalite is found to be stable while increasing the temperature towards the eutectic temperature of 252 K. Taken together, this study reveals no differences in the phase changes of sodium chloride at the interface as compared to the bulk. That sodium chloride remains liquid at the interface upon cooling down to 241 K, which spans the most common temperature range in Arctic marine environments, has consequences for interfacial chemistry involving chlorine as well as for any other reactant for which the sodium chloride provides a liquid reservoir at the interface of environmental snow. Implications for the role of surface snow in atmospheric chemistry are discussed. © 2021 BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
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| 5. |
- Beer, Christian, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of short-term variability of meteorological variables on soil temperature in permafrost regions
- 2018
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 12:2, s. 741-757
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Effects of the short-term temporal variability of meteorological variables on soil temperature in northern high-latitude regions have been investigated. For this, a process-oriented land surface model has been driven using an artificially manipulated climate dataset. Short-term climate variability mainly impacts snow depth, and the thermal diffusivity of lichens and bryophytes. These impacts of climate variability on insulating surface layers together substantially alter the heat exchange between atmosphere and soil. As a result, soil temperature is 0.1 to 0.8 degrees C higher when climate variability is reduced. Earth system models project warming of the Arctic region but also increasing variability of meteorological variables and more often extreme meteorological events. Therefore, our results show that projected future increases in permafrost temperature and active-layer thickness in response to climate change will be lower (i) when taking into account future changes in short-term variability of meteorological variables and (ii) when representing dynamic snow and lichen and bryophyte functions in land surface models.
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| 6. |
- Chang, Kuang-Yu, et al.
(författare)
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Large carbon cycle sensitivities to climate across a permafrost thaw gradient in subarctic Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 13:2, s. 647-663
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Permafrost peatlands store large amounts of carbon potentially vulnerable to decomposition. However, the fate of that carbon in a changing climate remains uncertain in models due to complex interactions among hydrological, biogeochemical, microbial, and plant processes. In this study, we estimated effects of climate forcing biases present in global climate reanalysis products on carbon cycle predictions at a thawing permafrost peatland in subarctic Sweden. The analysis was conducted with a comprehensive biogeochemical model (ecosys) across a permafrost thaw gradient encompassing intact permafrost palsa with an ice core and a shallow active layer, partly thawed bog with a deeper active layer and a variable water table, and fen with a water table close to the surface, each with distinct vegetation and microbiota. Using in situ observations to correct local cold and wet biases found in the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 3 (GSWP3) climate reanalysis forcing, we demonstrate good model performance by comparing predicted and observed carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) exchanges, thaw depth, and water table depth. The simulations driven by the bias-corrected climate suggest that the three peatland types currently accumulate carbon from the atmosphere, although the bog and fen sites can have annual positive radiative forcing impacts due to their higher CH4 emissions. Our simulations indicate that projected precipitation increases could accelerate CH4 emissions from the palsa area, even without further degradation of palsa permafrost. The GSWP3 cold and wet biases for this site significantly alter simulation results and lead to erroneous active layer depth (ALD) and carbon budget estimates. Biases in simulated CO2 and CH4 exchanges from biased climate forcing are as large as those among the thaw stages themselves at a landscape scale across the examined permafrost thaw gradient. Future studies should thus not only focus on changes in carbon budget associated with morphological changes in thawing permafrost, but also recognize the effects of climate forcing uncertainty on carbon cycling.
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| 7. |
- Charalampidis, Charalampos, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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Changing surface-atmosphere energy exchange and refreezing capacity of the lower accumulation area, West Greenland
- 2015
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 9:6, s. 2163-2181
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present 5 years (2009-2013) of automatic weather station measurements from the lower accumulation area (1840 m a.s.l. - above sea level) of the Greenland ice sheet in the Kangerlussuaq region. Here, the summers of 2010 and 2012 were both exceptionally warm, but only 2012 resulted in a strongly negative surface mass budget (SMB) and surface meltwater run-off. The observed run-off was due to a large ice fraction in the upper 10 m of firn that prevented meltwater from percolating to available pore volume below. Analysis reveals an anomalously low 2012 summer-averaged albedo of 0.71 (typically similar to 0.78), as meltwater was present at the ice sheet surface. Consequently, during the 2012 melt season, the ice sheet surface absorbed 28% (213 MJ m-2) more solar radiation than the average of all other years. A surface energy balance model is used to evaluate the seasonal and interannual variability of all surface energy fluxes. The model reproduces the observed melt rates as well as the SMB for each season. A sensitivity analysis reveals that 71% of the additional solar radiation in 2012 was used for melt, corresponding to 36% (0.64 m) of the 2012 surface lowering. The remaining 64% (1.14 m) of surface lowering resulted from high atmospheric temperatures, up to a + 2.6 degrees C daily average, indicating that 2012 would have been a negative SMB year at this site even without the melt-albedo feedback. Longer time series of SMB, regional temperature, and remotely sensed albedo (MODIS) show that 2012 was the first strongly negative SMB year, with the lowest albedo, at this elevation on record. The warm conditions of recent years have resulted in enhanced melt and reduction of the refreezing capacity in the lower accumulation area. If high temperatures continue, the current lower accumulation area will turn into a region with superimposed ice in coming years.
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| 8. |
- Charkin, Alexander N., et al.
(författare)
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Discovery and characterization of submarine groundwater discharge in the Siberian Arctic seas : a case study in the Buor-Khaya Gulf, Laptev Sea
- 2017
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 11:5, s. 2305-2327
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It has been suggested that increasing terrestrial water discharge to the Arctic Ocean may partly occur as submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), yet there are no direct observations of this phenomenon in the Arctic shelf seas. This study tests the hypothesis that SGD does exist in the Siberian Arctic Shelf seas, but its dynamics may be largely controlled by complicated geocryological conditions such as permafrost. The field-observational approach in the southeastern Laptev Sea used a combination of hydrological (temperature, salinity), geological (bottom sediment drilling, geoelectric surveys), and geochemical (Ra-224, Ra-223, Ra-228, and Ra-226) techniques. Active SGD was documented in the vicinity of the Lena River delta with two different operational modes. In the first system, groundwater discharges through tectonogenic permafrost talik zones was registered in both winter and summer. The second SGD mechanism was cryogenic squeezing out of brine and water-soluble salts detected on the periphery of ice hummocks in the winter. The proposed mechanisms of groundwater transport and discharge in the Arctic land-shelf system is elaborated. Through salinity vs. Ra-224 and Ra-224/Ra-223 diagrams, the three main SGD-influenced water masses were identified and their end-member composition was constrained. Based on simple mass-balance box models, discharge rates at sites in the submarine permafrost talik zone were 1.7 x 10(6) m(3) d(-1) or 19.9 m(3) s(-1), which is much higher than the April discharge of the Yana River. Further studies should apply these techniques on a broader scale with the objective of elucidating the relative importance of the SGD transport vector relative to surface freshwater discharge for both water balance and aquatic components such as dissolved organic carbon, carbon dioxide, methane, and nutrients.
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| 9. |
- Cheng, Gong, et al.
(författare)
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Parameter sensitivity analysis of dynamic ice sheet models — numerical computations
- 2020
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 14, s. 673-691
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abstract. The friction coefficient and the base topography of a stationary and a dynamic ice sheet are perturbed in two models for the ice: the full Stokes equations and the shallow shelf approximation. The sensitivity to the perturbations of the velocity and the height at the surface is quantified by solving the adjoint equations of the stress and the height equations providing weights for the perturbed data. The adjoint equations are solved numerically and the sensitivity is computed in several examples in two dimensions. A transfer matrix couples the perturbations at the base with the perturbations at the top. Comparisons are made with analytical solutions to simplified problems. The sensitivity to perturbations depends on their wavelengths and the distance to the grounding line. A perturbation in the topography has a direct effect at the ice surface above it, while a change in the friction coefficient is less visible there.
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| 10. |
- Cheng, Gong, et al.
(författare)
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Sensitivity of ice sheet surface velocity and elevation to variations in basal friction and topography in the full Stokes and shallow-shelf approximation frameworks using adjoint equations
- 2021
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - : Copernicus Publications. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 15:2, s. 715-742
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Predictions of future mass loss from ice sheets are afflicted with uncertainty, caused, among others, by insufficient understanding of spatiotemporally variable processes at the inaccessible base of ice sheets for which few direct observations exist and of which basal friction is a prime example. Here, we present a general numerical framework for studying the relationship between bed and surface properties of ice sheets and glaciers. Specifically, we use an inverse modeling approach and the associated time-dependent adjoint equations, derived in the framework of a full Stokes model and a shallow-shelf/shelfy-stream approximation model, respectively, to determine the sensitivity of grounded ice sheet surface velocities and elevation to time-dependent perturbations in basal friction and basal topography. Analytical and numerical examples are presented showing the importance of including the time-dependent kinematic free surface equation for the elevation and its adjoint, in particular for observations of the elevation. A closed form of the analytical solutions to the adjoint equations is given for a two-dimensional vertical ice in steady state under the shallow-shelf approximation. There is a delay in time between a seasonal perturbation at the ice base and the observation of the change in elevation. A perturbation at the base in the topography has a direct effect in space at the surface above the perturbation, and a perturbation in the friction is propagated directly to the surface in time.
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