Articles | Volume 18, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1633-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1633-2024
Research article
 | 
09 Apr 2024
Research article |  | 09 Apr 2024

Fifty years of firn evolution on Grigoriev ice cap, Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan

Horst Machguth, Anja Eichler, Margit Schwikowski, Sabina Brütsch, Enrico Mattea, Stanislav Kutuzov, Martin Heule, Ryskul Usubaliev, Sultan Belekov, Vladimir N. Mikhalenko, Martin Hoelzle, and Marlene Kronenberg

Data sets

Firn core data from Grigoriev Ice Cap, 1962 to present Horst Machguth et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10082960

Gregoriev firn data Marlene Kronenberg et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7113282

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Short summary
In 2018 we drilled an 18 m ice core on the summit of Grigoriev ice cap, located in the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan. The core analysis reveals strong melting since the early 2000s. Regardless of this, we find that the structure and temperature of the ice have changed little since the 1980s. The probable cause of this apparent stability is (i) an increase in snowfall and (ii) the fact that meltwater nowadays leaves the glacier and thereby removes so-called latent heat.