Loss of accumulation zone exposes dark ice and drives increased ablation at Weißseespitze, Austria

Hartl, Lea; Covi, Federico; Stocker-Waldhuber, Martin; Baldo, Anna; Fugazza, Davide; Di Mauro, Biagio; Naegeli, Kathrin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3329-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3329-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3329-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 8

Research article

|

27 Aug 2025

Research article |

| 27 Aug 2025

Loss of accumulation zone exposes dark ice and drives increased ablation at Weißseespitze, Austria

Lea Hartl, Federico Covi, Martin Stocker-Waldhuber, Anna Baldo, Davide Fugazza, Biagio Di Mauro, and Kathrin Naegeli

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3329-2025-supplement

Data sets

Point mass balance (floating date) Weißseespitze (Tyrol, Austria) 2017 et seq [dataset publication series] M. Stocker-Waldhuber et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.982344

Meteorological data Weißseespitze/Austria, 2017 et seq M. Stocker-Waldhuber et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.939830

baldoa/cosipy_MSc: COSIPY_vAWSinput A. Arndt et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16898470

Model code and software

LeaHartl/WSS_Albedo: wss_albedo_v01 LeaHartl https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15631411

Short summary

Glacier albedo determines how much solar radiation is absorbed by the glacier surface and is a key driver of glacier melt. Alpine glaciers are losing their snow and firn cover, and the underlying darker ice is becoming exposed. This means that more solar radiation is absorbed by the ice, which leads to increased melt. To quantify these processes, we explore data from a high-elevation, on-ice weather station that measures albedo and combine this information with satellite imagery.