Articles | Volume 13, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1051-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1051-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
02 Apr 2019
Research article |
| 02 Apr 2019
| 02 Apr 2019
A multi-season investigation of glacier surface roughness lengths through in situ and remote observation
Noel Fitzpatrick
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Valentina Radić
Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Brian Menounos
Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Institute and Geography Program, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, V2N 4Z9, Canada
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Revised manuscript under review for ESSD
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Many mountain glaciers around the world flow into lakes – exactly how many however, has never been mapped. Across a large team of experts we have now identified all glaciers that end in lakes. Only about 1% do so, but they are generally larger than those which end on land. This is important to understand, as lakes can influence the behaviour of glacier ice, including how fast it disappears. This new dataset allows us to better model glaciers at a global scale, accounting for the effect of lakes.
Alexandre R. Bevington, Brian Menounos, and Mark Ednie
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Adam C. Hawkins, Brent M. Goehring, and Brian Menounos
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Repeat elevation measurements are crucial for monitoring glacier health and to understand how glaciers affect river flows and sea level. Until recently, high-resolution elevation data were mostly available for polar regions and High Mountain Asia. Our project, the Pléiades Glacier Observatory, now provides high-resolution topographies of 140 glacier sites worldwide. This is a novel and open dataset to monitor the impact of climate change on glaciers at high resolution and accuracy.
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The Cryosphere, 18, 889–894, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-889-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-889-2024, 2024
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Glaciers in western North American outside of Alaska are often overlooked in global studies because their potential to contribute to changes in sea level is small. Nonetheless, these glaciers represent important sources of freshwater, especially during times of drought. We show that these glaciers lost mass at a rate of about 12 Gt yr-1 for about the period 2013–2021; the rate of mass loss over the period 2018–2022 was similar.
Christina Draeger, Valentina Radić, Rachel H. White, and Mekdes Ayalew Tessema
The Cryosphere, 18, 17–42, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-17-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-17-2024, 2024
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Andrew G. Jones, Shaun A. Marcott, Andrew L. Gorin, Tori M. Kennedy, Jeremy D. Shakun, Brent M. Goehring, Brian Menounos, Douglas H. Clark, Matias Romero, and Marc W. Caffee
The Cryosphere, 17, 5459–5475, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5459-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5459-2023, 2023
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Mountain glaciers today are fractions of their sizes 140 years ago, but how do these sizes compare to the past 11,000 years? We find that four glaciers in the United States and Canada have reversed a long-term trend of growth and retreated to positions last occupied thousands of years ago. Notably, each glacier occupies a unique position relative to its long-term history. We hypothesize that unequal modern retreat has caused the glaciers to be out of sync relative to their Holocene histories.
Adam C. Hawkins, Brian Menounos, Brent M. Goehring, Gerald Osborn, Ben M. Pelto, Christopher M. Darvill, and Joerg M. Schaefer
The Cryosphere, 17, 4381–4397, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4381-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4381-2023, 2023
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Our study developed a record of glacier and climate change in the Mackenzie and Selwyn mountains of northwestern Canada over the past several hundred years. We estimate temperature change in this region using several methods and incorporate our glacier record with models of climate change to estimate how glacier volume in our study area has changed over time. Models of future glacier change show that our study area will become largely ice-free by the end of the 21st century.
Sara E. Darychuk, Joseph M. Shea, Brian Menounos, Anna Chesnokova, Georg Jost, and Frank Weber
The Cryosphere, 17, 1457–1473, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-1457-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-1457-2023, 2023
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We use synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) and optical observations to map snowmelt timing and duration on the watershed scale. We found that Sentinel-1 SAR time series can be used to approximate snowmelt onset over diverse terrain and land cover types, and we present a low-cost workflow for SAR processing over large, mountainous regions. Our approach provides spatially distributed observations of the snowpack necessary for model calibration and can be used to monitor snowmelt in ungauged basins.
Jonathan P. Conway, Jakob Abermann, Liss M. Andreassen, Mohd Farooq Azam, Nicolas J. Cullen, Noel Fitzpatrick, Rianne H. Giesen, Kirsty Langley, Shelley MacDonell, Thomas Mölg, Valentina Radić, Carleen H. Reijmer, and Jean-Emmanuel Sicart
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We used data from automatic weather stations on 16 glaciers to show how clouds influence glacier melt in different climates around the world. We found surface melt was always more frequent when it was cloudy but was not universally faster or slower than under clear-sky conditions. Also, air temperature was related to clouds in opposite ways in different climates – warmer with clouds in cold climates and vice versa. These results will help us improve how we model past and future glacier melt.
Christophe Kinnard, Olivier Larouche, Michael N. Demuth, and Brian Menounos
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This study implements a physically based, distributed glacier mass balance model in a context of sparse direct observations. Carefully constraining model parameters with ancillary data allowed for accurately reconstructing the mass balance of Saskatchewan Glacier over a 37-year period. We show that the mass balance sensitivity to warming is dominated by increased melting and that changes in glacier albedo and air humidity are the leading causes of increased glacier melt under warming scenarios.
Brent M. Goehring, Brian Menounos, Gerald Osborn, Adam Hawkins, and Brent Ward
Geochronology, 4, 311–322, https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-4-311-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-4-311-2022, 2022
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We explored surface exposure dating with two nuclides to date two sets of moraines from the Yukon Territory and explain the reasoning for the observed ages. Results suggest multiple processes, including preservation of nuclides from a prior exposure period, and later erosion of the moraines is required to explain the data. Our results only allow for the older moraines to date to Marine Isotope Stage 3 or 4 and the younger moraines to date to the very earliest Holocene.
Sam Anderson and Valentina Radić
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Dhiraj Pradhananga, John W. Pomeroy, Caroline Aubry-Wake, D. Scott Munro, Joseph Shea, Michael N. Demuth, Nammy Hang Kirat, Brian Menounos, and Kriti Mukherjee
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This paper presents hydrological, meteorological, glaciological and geospatial data of Peyto Glacier Basin in the Canadian Rockies. They include high-resolution DEMs derived from air photos and lidar surveys and long-term hydrological and glaciological model forcing datasets derived from bias-corrected reanalysis products. These data are crucial for studying climate change and variability in the basin and understanding the hydrological responses of the basin to both glacier and climate change.
Vincent Vionnet, Christopher B. Marsh, Brian Menounos, Simon Gascoin, Nicholas E. Wayand, Joseph Shea, Kriti Mukherjee, and John W. Pomeroy
The Cryosphere, 15, 743–769, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-743-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-743-2021, 2021
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Mountain snow cover provides critical supplies of fresh water to downstream users. Its accurate prediction requires inclusion of often-ignored processes. A multi-scale modelling strategy is presented that efficiently accounts for snow redistribution. Model accuracy is assessed via airborne lidar and optical satellite imagery. With redistribution the model captures the elevation–snow depth relation. Redistribution processes are required to reproduce spatial variability, such as around ridges.
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Short summary
Measurements of surface roughness are rare on glaciers, despite being an important control for heat exchange with the atmosphere and surface melt. In this study, roughness values were determined through measurements at multiple locations and seasons and found to vary across glacier surfaces and to differ from commonly assumed values in melt models. Two new methods that remotely determine roughness from digital elevation models returned good performance and may facilitate improved melt modelling.
Measurements of surface roughness are rare on glaciers, despite being an important control for...
