Université de Fribourg

Towards remote monitoring of sub-seasonal glacier mass balance

Huss, Matthias ; Sold, Leo ; Hoelzle, Martin ; Stokvis, Mazzal ; Salzmann, Nadine ; Farinotti, Daniel ; Zemp, Michael

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...

Université de Fribourg

Methodological approaches to infer end-of-winter snow distribution on alpine glaciers

Sold, Leo ; Huss, Matthias ; Hoelzle, Martin ; Andereggen, Hubert ; Joerg, Philip C. ; Zemp, Michael

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...

Université de Fribourg

High uncertainty in 21st century runoff projections from glacierized basins

Huss, Matthias ; Zemp, Michael ; Joerg, Philip C. ; Salzmann, Nadine

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...