In: The Cryosphere, 2014, vol. 8, no. 4, p. 1261–1273
Assessing and projecting the dynamic response of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula to changed atmospheric and oceanic forcing requires high-resolution ice thickness data as an essential geometric constraint for ice flow models. Here, we derive a complete bedrock data set for the Antarctic Peninsula north of 70° S on a 100 m grid. We calculate distributed ice thickness based on surface...
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In: Geosciences, 2014, vol. 4, no. 3, p. 73–92
Snow is an excellent water reservoir, naturally storing large quantities of water at time scales from a few days to several months. In summer-dry countries, like Armenia, runoff due to snow melt from mountain regions is highly important for a sustained water supply (irrigation, hydropower). Snow fields on Mount Aragats, Armenia’s highest peak, often persist until July, providing vital amounts...
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In: Annals of Glaciology, 2014, vol. 55, no. 66, p. 34–44
Kyagar glacier is located in the Chinese Karakoram mountains. The glacier tongue entirely blocks the riverbed in the upper Shaksgam valley and impounds a glacial lake, which was the source of several violent and disastrous glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). A GLOF early warning system was implemented between 2011 and 2013. We present an integrative analysis of the hazard potential of Kyagar...
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In: Annals of Glaciology, 2014, vol. 55, no. 67, p. 22–28
A glacier-wide ice-thickness distribution and bedrock topography is presented for Starbuck Glacier, Antarctic Peninsula. The results are based on 90 km of ground-based radio-echo sounding lines collected during the 2012/13 field season. Cross-validation with ice-thickness measurements provided by NASA's IceBridge project reveals excellent agreement. Glacier-wide estimates are derived using a...
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In: Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2014, p. 1–24
We present and test a conceptual and methodological approach for interdisciplinary sustainability assessments of water governance systems based on what we call the sustainability wheel. The approach combines transparent identification of sustainability principles, their regional contextualization through sub-principles (indicators), and the scoring of these indicators through deliberative...
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In: The Cryosphere, 2013, vol. 7, no. 6, p. 1707–1720
Volume–area scaling is the most popular method for estimating the ice volume of large glacier samples. Here, a series of resampling experiments based on different sets of synthetic data is presented in order to derive an upper-bound estimate (i.e. a level achieved only within ideal conditions) for its accuracy. For real-world applications, a lower accuracy has to be expected. We also quantify...
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In: Annals of Glaciology, 2013, vol. 54, no. 63, p. 75–83
This study presents a method that allows continuous monitoring of mass balance for remote or inaccessible glaciers, based on repeated oblique photography. Hourly to daily pictures from two automatic cameras overlooking two large valley glaciers in the Swiss Alps are available for eight ablation seasons (2004–11) in total. We determine the fraction of snow-covered glacier surface from...
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In: Journal of Glaciology, 2013, vol. 59, no. 218, p. 1047–1059
Snow accumulation is an important component of the mass balance of alpine glaciers. To improve our understanding of the processes related to accumulation and their representation in state-of-the-art mass-balance models, extensive field measurements are required. We present measurements of snow accumulation distribution on Findelengletscher, Switzerland, for April 2010 using (1) in situ snow...
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In: Journal of Hydrology, 2014, vol. 510, p. 35–48
Glacier response to a changing climate and its impact on runoff is understood in general terms, but model-based projections are affected by considerable uncertainties. They originate from the driving climate model, input data quality, and simplifications in the glacio-hydrological model and hamper the reliability of the simulations. Here, an integrative assessment of the uncertainty in 21st...
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In: The Cryosphere, 2013, vol. 7, no. 4, p. 1227-1245
Glacier-wide mass balance has been measured for more than sixty years and is widely used as an indicator of climate change and to assess the glacier contribution to runoff and sea level rise. Until recently, comprehensive uncertainty assessments have rarely been carried out and mass balance data have often been applied using rough error estimation or without consideration of errors. In this...
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