Articles | Volume 19, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1513-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1513-2025
Research article
 | 
04 Apr 2025
Research article |  | 04 Apr 2025

Long-term development of a perennial firn aquifer on the Lomonosovfonna ice cap, Svalbard

Tim van den Akker, Ward van Pelt, Rickard Petterson, and Veijo A. Pohjola

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Cited articles

Bakker, M., Post, V., Langevin, C. D., Hughes, J. D., White, J. T., Starn, J., and Fienen, M. N.: Scripting MODFLOW model development using Python and FloPy, Groundwater, 54, 733–739, 2016. 
Bintanja, R. and Andry, O.: Towards a rain-dominated Arctic, Nat. Clim. Change, 7, 263–267, 2017. 
Brils, M., Kuipers Munneke, P., van de Berg, W. J., and van den Broeke, M.: Improved representation of the contemporary Greenland ice sheet firn layer by IMAU-FDM v1.2G, Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 7121–7138, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-7121-2022, 2022. 
Christianson, K., Kohler, J., Alley, R. B., Nuth, C., and van Pelt, W. J.: Dynamic perennial firn aquifer on an Arctic glacier, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 1418–1426, 2015. 
Flink, A. E., Noormets, R., Kirchner, N., Benn, D. I., Luckman, A., and Lovell, H.: The evolution of a submarine landform record following recent and multiple surges of Tunabreen glacier, Svalbard, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 108, 37–50, 2015. 
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Short summary
Liquid water can persist within old snow on glaciers and ice caps if it can percolate into the snow before it refreezes. Snow is a good insulator, and it is porous where the percolated water can be stored. If this happens, the water piles up and forms a groundwater-like system. Here, we show observations of such a groundwater-like system found in Svalbard. We demonstrate that it behaves like a groundwater system and use that to model the development of the water table from 1957 until the present day.
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