| 1. |
- Booth, Adam D., et al.
(författare)
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A comparison of seismic and radar methods to establish the thickness and density of glacier snow cover
- 2013
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Ingår i: Annals of Glaciology. - 0260-3055 .- 1727-5644. ; 54:64, s. 73-82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We show that geophysical methods offer an effective means of quantifying snow thickness and density. Opportunistic (efficient but non-optimized) seismic refraction and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys were performed on Storglaciaren, Sweden, co-located with a snow pit that shows the snowpack to be 1.73 m thick, with density increasing from similar to 120 to similar to 500 kg m(-3) (with a +50 kg m(-3) anomaly between 0.73 and 0.83 m depth). Depths estimated for two detectable GPR reflectors, 0.76 +/- 0.02 and 1.71 +/- 0.03 m, correlate extremely well with ground-truth observations. Refraction seismic predicts an interface at 1.90 +/- 0.31 m depth, with a refraction velocity (3730 +/- 190 m s(-1)) indicative of underlying glacier ice. For density estimates, several standard velocity-density relationships are trialled. In the best case, GPR delivers an excellent density estimate for the upper snow layer (observed = 321 +/- 74 kg m(-3), estimated = 319 +/- 10 kg m(-3)) but overestimates the density of the lower layer by 20%. Refraction seismic delivers a bulk density of 404 +/- 22 kg m(-3) compared with a ground-truth average of 356 +/- 22 kg m(-3). We suggest that geophysical surveys are an effective complement to mass-balance measurements (particularly for controlling estimates of snow thickness between pits) but should always be validated against ground-truth observations.
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| 2. |
- Gusmeroli, Alessio, et al.
(författare)
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Twenty years of cold surface layer thinning at Storglaciaren, sub-Arctic Sweden, 1989-2009
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Glaciology. - 0022-1430 .- 1727-5652. ; 58:207, s. 3-10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents the changes in the thermal structure of the polythermal glacier Storglaciaren, northern Sweden, over the 20 year period 1989-2009 derived by comparing maps of the depth of the englacial transition between cold ice (permanently frozen) and temperate ice (which contains water inclusions). The maps are based on interpreted ice-penetrating radar surveys from 1989, 2001 and 2009. Complex thinning of the cold layer, first identified between 1989 and 2001, is still ongoing. A volume calculation shows that Storglaciaren has lost one-third of its cold surface layer volume in 20 years, with a mean thinning rate of 0.80 +/- 0.24 m a(-1). We suggest that the thinning of the cold layer at Storglaciaren is connected to the climatic warming experienced by sub-Arctic Scandinavia since the 1980s and we argue that repeated ice-penetrating radar surveys over the ablation area of polythermal glaciers offer a useful proxy for evaluating glacier responses to changes in climate.
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| 3. |
- Gusmeroli, Alessio, et al.
(författare)
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Vertical distribution of water within the polythermal Storglaciären, Sweden
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 115:F4, s. F04002-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Knowledge of water content and its distribution in polythermal glaciers is required to model their flow and thermal state. However, observ of water content variations with depth in polythermal glaciers are scarce. Water content can be estimated from radio wave speed because they depend on one another. We obtained continuous profiles of radio wave speed variations with depth from zero-offset radar profiles collected in boreholes approximately 80 m deep in the upper ablation area of Storglaciaren, northern Sweden. These profiles show that the microcrystalline water system in the temperate ice is relatively homogeneous. The overall hydrothermal structure at this location is composed of a 20 m thick upper layer of cold, water-free ice, underlain by a temperate ice layer whose average water content is 0.6% +/- 0.3%. These results are corroborated by surface radar and thermistor measurements, which show that the depth of the cold temperate transition is 21 m and the calculated water content at that transition is 0.6% +/- 0.1%. These findings imply that the whole temperate ice layer is from 3 to 4 times softer than the cold ice and, consequently, that realistic ice flow models of polythermal glaciers should include the effect of water content on viscosity.
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| 4. |
- Gusmeroli, Alessio, et al.
(författare)
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Vertical seismic profiling of glaciers : appraising multi-phase mixing models
- 2013
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Ingår i: Annals of Glaciology. - 0260-3055 .- 1727-5644. ; 54:64, s. 115-123
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We have investigated the speed of compressional waves in a polythermal glacier by, first, predicting them from a simple three-phase (ice, air, water) model derived from a published ground-penetrating radar study, and then comparing them with field data from four orthogonally orientated walkaway vertical seismic profiles (VSPs) acquired in an 80 m deep borehole drilled in the ablation area of Storglaciaren, northern Sweden. The model predicts that the P-wave speed increases gradually with depth from 3700 m s(-1) at the surface to 3760 m s(-1) at 80 m depth, and this change is almost wholly caused by a reduction in air content from 3% at the surface to <0.5% at depth. Changes in P-wave speed due to water content variations are small (<10 m s(-1)); the model's seismic cold-temperate transition surface (CTS) is characterized by a 0.3% decrease downwards in P-wave speed (about ten times smaller than the radar CTS). This lack of sensitivity, and the small contrast at the CTS, makes seismically derived water content estimation very challenging. Nevertheless, for down-going direct-wave first arrivals for zero- and near-offset VSP shots, we find that the model-predicted travel times and field observations agree to within 0.2 ms, i.e. less than the observational uncertainties.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Reinardy, Benedict T. I., et al.
(författare)
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Streaming flow of an Antarctic Peninsula palaeo-ice stream, both by basal sliding and deformation of substrate
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Glaciology. - : International Glaciological Society. - 0022-1430 .- 1727-5652. ; 57:204, s. 596-608
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Acoustic sub-bottom profiler surveys on the northeast Antarctic Peninsula shelf indicate that parts of the seabed are underlain by an acoustically transparent layer that is thin on the inner shelf and becomes thicker and more extensive towards the outer shelf. Sedimentological and geophysical data are combined to construct a bed model where streaming ice flow, by both deformation and basal sliding, took place within cross-shelf troughs. The model suggests only limited deformation contributed to fast flow on the inner shelf, i.e. in the onset zone of ice streaming, where the bed was predominantly underlain by a stiff till. Thus, fast ice flow in this area might have been by basal sliding, with deformation confined to discontinuous patches of soft till <40cm thick. Towards the middle and outer shelf, extensive, thick sequences of soft till suggest a change in the dominant subglacial process towards widespread deformation. This downstream change from basal sliding to subglacial deformation is manifest in the transition from stiff-till dominance to soft-till dominance, while a downstream increase in ice flow velocity is evident from the complex geomorphic imprint on the inner shelf evolving to the more restricted set of bedforms on the outer shelf.
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| 7. |
- Reinardy, Benedict T. I., et al.
(författare)
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Till genesis at the bed of an Antarctic Peninsula palaeo-ice stream as indicated by micromorphological analysis
- 2011
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Ingår i: Boreas. - : Wiley. - 0300-9483 .- 1502-3885. ; 40:3, s. 498-517
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sediment cores from cross-shelf troughs on the NE Antarctic Peninsula shelf recovered tills with variable shear strengths that represent different subglacial depositional regimes. In addition to detailed qualitative micromorphological descriptions, a quantitative method was applied, which revealed a higher abundance of boudins and intraclasts and a lower abundance of crushed and fractured grains in samples from the soft till compared with samples from the underlying stiff till. This is the first evidence of significant (micro-scale) differences between the two types of till and thus strengthens previous interpretations that were based primarily on shear strength. The differences between the soft and stiff till relate to a deforming continuum whereby the initial deposition of till as ice advanced across the shelf produced ductile structures before dewatering and compaction led to the formation of brittle structures such as crushed and fractured grains in the now stiff till. A change in ice-flow dynamics led to streaming flow and the deformation of the upper parts of the stiff till that was being reworked into a soft till. The soft till facilitated ice streaming, and progressive shearing led to the homogenization of the ice stream substrate, which was partially advected downstream. The resulting till thus contains poly-deformational structures, with deformation structures inherited from the stiff till being generally poorly preserved. Our micromorphological analysis of the soft till provides the first widespread sedimentological evidence of deformation across the palaeo-ice stream bed on the NE Antarctic Peninsula shelf.
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| 8. |
- Schannwell, Clemens, et al.
(författare)
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An automatic approach to delineate the cold-temperate transition surface with ground-penetrating radar on polythermal glaciers
- 2014
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Ingår i: Annals of Glaciology. - 0260-3055 .- 1727-5644. ; 55:67, s. 89-96
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ground-penetrating radar has been widely used to map the thermal structure of polythermal glaciers. Hitherto, the cold temperate transition surface (CTS) in radargrams has been identified by a labour-intensive and subjective manual picking method. We introduce a new automatic approach for picking the CTS that uses the difference in signal power exhibited by the cold and temperate ice layers. We compare our automatically computed CTS depths with manual picks. Our results show very good agreement between the two methods in most areas (r(2) > 0.7). RMSEs computed at each trace in two-way travel-time from three test sites range from 14 to 19 ns (2.4-3.2 m). The proposed automated method mostly fails in areas showing a rather gradual transition in signal power at the CTS. In some areas, high power originating from non-water sources is misinterpreted by the automatic picking method as 'temperate ice'.
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