Chronological framework for the deglaciation of the Lake Michigan lobe of the Laurentide ice sheet from ice-walled lake deposits

USGS Publications Warehouse

Curry, B.; Petras, J.

2011-01-01

A revised chronological framework for the deglaciation of the Lake Michigan lobe of the south-central Laurentide Ice Sheet is presented based on radiocarbon ages of plant macrofossils archived in the sediments of low-relief ice-walled lakes. We analyze the precision and accuracy of 15 AMS 14C ages of plant macrofossils obtained from a single ice-walled lake deposit. The semi-circular basin is about 0.72km wide and formed of a 4- to 16-m-thick succession of loess and lacustrine sediment inset into till. The assayed material was leaves, buds and stems of Salix herbacea (snowbed willow). The pooled mean of three ages from the basal lag facies was 18 270??50 14C a BP (21 810cal. a BP), an age that approximates the switch from active ice to stagnating conditions. The pooled mean of four ages for the youngest fossil-bearing horizon was 17 770??40 14C a BP (21 180cal. a BP). Material yielding the oldest and youngest ages may be obtained from sediment cores located at any place within the landform. Based on the estimated settling times of overlying barren, rhythmically bedded sand and silt, the lacustrine environment persisted for about 50 more years. At a 67% confidence level, the dated part of the ice-walled lake succession persisted for between 210 and 860cal. a (modal value: 610cal. a). The deglacial age of five moraines or morainal complexes formed by the fluctuating margin of the Lake Michigan lobe have been assessed using this method. There is no overlap of time intervals documenting when ice-walled lakes persisted on these landforms. The rapid readvances of the lobe during deglaciation after the last glacial maximum probably occurred at some point between the periods of ice-walled lake sedimentation. ?? 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Passive microwave mapping of ice thickness. Final Report. Ph.D. Thesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Apinis, J. J.; Peake, W. H.

1976-01-01

Basic calculations are presented for evaluating the feasibility of a scanning microwave radiometer system for mapping the thickness of lake ice. An analytical model for the apparent brightness temperature as a function of ice thickness has been developed, and elaborated to include such variables as galactic and atmospheric noise, aspect angle, polarization, temperature gradient in the ice, the presence of transition layers such as snow, slush, and water, increased loss due to air inclusions in the ice layer, and the presence of multiple ice thicknesses within the antenna footprint. It was found that brightness temperature measurements at six or seven frequencies in the range of 0.4 to 0.7 GHz were required to obtain unambiquous thickness estimates. A number of data processing methods were examined. The effects of antenna beamwidth, scanning rate, receiver bandwidth, noise figure, and integration time were studied.

Ice-dammed lake drainage evolution at Russell Glacier, west Greenland

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carrivick, Jonathan L.; Tweed, Fiona S.; Ng, Felix; Quincey, Duncan J.; Mallalieu, Joseph; Ingeman-Nielsen, Thomas; Mikkelsen, Andreas B.; Palmer, Steven J.; Yde, Jacob C.; Homer, Rachel; Russell, Andrew J.; Hubbard, Alun

2017-11-01

Glaciological and hydraulic factors that control the timing and mechanisms of glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) remain poorly understood. This study used measurements of lake level at fifteen minute intervals and known lake bathymetry to calculate lake outflow during two GLOF events from the northern margin of Russell Glacier, west Greenland. We used measured ice surface elevation, interpolated subglacial topography and likely conduit geometry to inform a melt enlargement model of the outburst evolution. The model was tuned to best-fit the hydrograph’s rising limb and timing of peak discharge in both events; it achieved Mean Absolute Errors of < 5 %. About one third of the way through the rising limb, conduit melt enlargement became the dominant drainage mechanism. Lake water temperature, which strongly governed the enlargement rate, preconditioned the high peak discharge and short duration of these floods. We hypothesize that both GLOFs were triggered by ice dam flotation, and localised hydraulic jacking sustained most of their early-stage outflow, explaining the particularly rapid water egress in comparison to that recorded at other ice-marginal lakes. As ice overburden pressure relative to lake water hydraulic head diminished, flow became confined to a subglacial conduit. This study has emphasised the inter-play between ice dam thickness and lake level, drainage timing, lake water temperature and consequently rising stage lake outflow and flood evolution.

Historical trend in river ice thickness and coherence in hydroclimatological trends in Maine

USGS Publications Warehouse

Huntington, T.G.; Hodgkins, G.A.; Dudley, R.W.

2003-01-01

We analyzed long-term records of ice thickness on the Piscataquis River in central Maine and air temperature in Maine to determine whether there were temporal trends that were associated with climate warming. The trend in ice thickness was compared and correlated with regional time series of winter air temperature, heating degree days (HDD), date of river ice-out, seasonal center-of-volume date (SCVD) (date on which half of the stream runoff volume during the period 1 Jan. to 31 May has occurred), water temperature, and lake ice-out date. All of these variables except lake ice-out date showed significant temporal trends during the 20th century. Average ice thickness around 28 February decreased by about 23 cm from 1912 to 2001. Over the period 1900 to 1999, winter air temperature increased by 1.7??C and HDD decreased by about 7.5%. Final ice-out date on the Piscataquis River occurred earlier (advanced), by 0.21 days yr-1 over the period 1931 to 2002, and the SCVD advanced by 0.11 days yr-1 over the period 1903 to 2001. Ice thickness was significantly correlated (P-value < 0.01) with winter air temperature, HDD, river ice-out, and SCVD. These systematic temporal trends in multiple hydrologic indicator variables indicate a coherent response to climate forcing.

Ice cover, landscape setting, and geological framework of Lake Vostok, East Antarctica

USGS Publications Warehouse

Studinger, M.; Bell, R.E.; Karner, G.D.; Tikku, A.A.; Holt, J.W.; Morse, D.L.; David, L.; Richter, T.G.; Kempf, S.D.; Peters, M.E.; Blankenship, D.D.; Sweeney, R.E.; Rystrom, V.L.

2003-01-01

Lake Vostok, located beneath more than 4 km of ice in the middle of East Antarctica, is a unique subglacial habitat and may contain microorganisms with distinct adaptations to such an extreme environment. Melting and freezing at the base of the ice sheet, which slowly flows across the lake, controls the flux of water, biota and sediment particles through the lake. The influx of thermal energy, however, is limited to contributions from below. Thus the geological origin of Lake Vostok is a critical boundary condition for the subglacial ecosystem. We present the first comprehensive maps of ice surface, ice thickness and subglacial topography around Lake Vostok. The ice flow across the lake and the landscape setting are closely linked to the geological origin of Lake Vostok. Our data show that Lake Vostok is located along a major geological boundary. Magnetic and gravity data are distinct east and west of the lake, as is the roughness of the subglacial topography. The physiographic setting of the lake has important consequences for the ice flow and thus the melting and freezing pattern and the lake's circulation. Lake Vostok is a tectonically controlled subglacial lake. The tectonic processes provided the space for a unique habitat and recent minor tectonic activity could have the potential to introduce small, but significant amounts of thermal energy into the lake. ?? 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Ice thickness estimations based on multi-temporal glacier inventories - potential and challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Helfricht, Kay; Huss, Matthias; Otto, Jan-Christoph

2016-04-01

The ongoing glacier retreat exposes a large number of surface depressions in the former glacier bed that can be filled with water or act as sediment traps. This has already been observed at various sites in Austria and in other mountain areas worldwide. The formation of glacial lakes can constitute an important environmental and socio-economic impact on high mountain systems including water resource management, sediment delivery, natural hazards, energy production and tourism. In general, information on ice thickness distribution is the basis for simulating future glacier change. We used the approach proposed by Huss and Farinotti (2012) to model the ice thickness distribution and potential locations of subglacial depressions. The study is part of the FUTURELAKE project that seeks to model the formation of new glacier lakes and their possible future evolution in the Austria Alps. The required data on glacier extent, surface elevation and slope were taken from the Austrian Glacier Inventories GI1 from 1969, GI2 from 1998 and GI3 from2006 (Fischer et al., 2015). The different glacier outlines and surface elevations from the inventories enable us to evaluate (i) the robustness of the modelled bedrock depressions with respect to different glacier settings, (ii) the power of the model to simulate recently formed glacial lakes, (iii) the similarities in calculated ice thickness distributions across the inventories and (iv) the feasibility of simulating observed changes in ice thickness and glacier volume. In general, the modelled localization of large potential depressions was relatively stable using the observed glacier settings. A number of examples show that recently formed glacial lakes could be detected by the model based on previous glacier extents. The locations of maximum ice depths within different elevation zones appeared to be sensitive to changes in glacier width. However, observed ice thickness changes and, thus, volume changes between the inventories could

Triple Isotope Water Measurements of Lake Untersee Ice using Off-Axis ICOS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berman, E. S.; Huang, Y. W.; Andersen, D. T.; Gupta, M.; McKay, C. P.

2015-12-01

Lake Untersee (71.348°S, 13.458°E) is the largest surface freshwater lake in the interior of the Gruber Mountains of central Queen Maud Land in East Antarctica. The lake is permanently covered with ice, is partly bounded by glacier ice and has a mean annual air temperature of -10°C. In contrast to other Antarctic lakes the dominating physical process controlling ice-cover dynamics is low summer temperatures and high wind speeds resulting in sublimation rather than melting as the main mass-loss process. The ice-cover of the lake is composed of lake-water ice formed during freeze-up and rafted glacial ice derived from the Anuchin Glacier. The mix of these two fractions impacts the energy balance of the lake, which directly affects ice-cover thickness. Ice-cover is important if one is to understand the physical, chemical, and biological linkages within these unique, physically driven ecosystems. We have analyzed δ2H, δ18O, and δ17O from samples of lake and glacier ice collected at Lake Untersee in Dec 2014. Using these data we seek to answer two specific questions: Are we able to determine the origin and history of the lake ice, discriminating between rafted glacial ice and lake water? Can isotopic gradients in the surface ice indicate the ablation (sublimation) rate of the surface ice? The triple isotope water analyzer developed by Los Gatos Research (LGR 912-0032) uses LGR's patented Off-Axis ICOS (Integrated Cavity Output Spectroscopy) technology and incorporates proprietary internal thermal control for high sensitivity and optimal instrument stability. This analyzer measures δ2H, δ18O, and δ17O from water, as well as the calculated d-excess and 17O-excess. The laboratory precision in high performance mode for both δ17O and δ18O is 0.03 ‰, and for δ2H is 0.2 ‰. Methodology and isotope data from Lake Untersee samples are presented. Figure: Ice samples were collected across Lake Untersee from both glacial and lake ice regions for this study.

Measurement and Analysis of Extreme Wave and Ice Actions in the Great Lakes for Offshore Wind Platform Design

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

England, Tony; van Nieuwstadt, Lin; De Roo, Roger

This project, funded by the Department of Energy as DE-EE0005376, successfully measured wind-driven lake ice forces on an offshore structure in Lake Superior through one of the coldest winters in recent history. While offshore regions of the Great Lakes offer promising opportunities for harvesting wind energy, these massive bodies of freshwater also offer extreme and unique challenges. Among these challenges is the need to anticipate forces exerted on offshore structures by lake ice. The parameters of interest include the frequency, extent, and movement of lake ice, parameters that are routinely monitored via satellite, and ice thickness, a parameter that hasmore » been monitored at discrete locations over many years and is routinely modeled. Essential relationships for these data to be of use in the design of offshore structures and the primary objective of this project are measurements of maximum forces that lake ice of known thicknesses might exert on an offshore structure.« less

The study of fresh-water lake ice using multiplexed imaging radar

USGS Publications Warehouse

Leonard, Bryan M.; Larson, R.W.

1975-01-01

The study of ice in the upper Great Lakes, both from the operational and the scientific points of view, is receiving continued attention. Quantitative and qualitative field work is being conducted to provide the needed background for accurate interpretation of remotely sensed data. The data under discussion in this paper were obtained by a side-looking multiplexed airborne radar (SLAR) supplemented with ground-truth data.Because of its ability to penetrate adverse weather, radar is an especially important instrument for monitoring ice in the upper Great Lakes. It has previously been shown that imaging radars can provide maps of ice cover in these areas. However, questions concerning both the nature of the surfaces reflecting radar energy and the interpretation of the radar imagery continually arise.Our analysis of ice in Whitefish Bay (Lake Superior) indicates that the combination of the ice/water interlace and the ice/air interface is the major contributor to the radar backscatter as seen on the imagery At these frequencies the ice has a very low relative dielectric permittivity (< 3.0) and a low loss tangent Thus, this ice is somewhat transparent to the energy used by the imaging SLAR system. The ice types studied include newly formed black ice, pancake ice, and frozen and consolidated pack and brash ice.Although ice thickness cannot be measured directly from the received signals, it is suspected that by combining the information pertaining to radar backscatter with data on the meteorological and sea-state history of the area, together with some basic ground truth, better estimates of the ice thickness may be provided. In addition, certain ice features (e.g. ridges, ice-foot formation, areas of brash ice) may be identified with reasonable confidence. There is a continued need for additional ground work to verify the validity of imaging radars for these types of interpretations.

Diffusion model validation and interpretation of stable isotopes in river and lake ice

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ferrick, M.G.; Calkins, D.J.; Perron, N.M.; Cragin, J.H.; Kendall, C.

2002-01-01

The stable isotope stratigraphy of river- and lake-ice archives winter hydroclimatic conditions, and can potentially be used to identify changing water sources or to provide important insights into ice formation processes and growth rates. However, accurate interpretations rely on known isotopic fractionation during ice growth. A one-dimensional diffusion model of the liquid boundary layer adjacent to an advancing solid interface, originally developed to simulate solute rejection by growing crystals, has been used without verification to describe non-equilibrium fractionation during congelation ice growth. Results are not in agreement, suggesting the presence of important uncertainties. In this paper we seek validation of the diffusion model for this application using large-scale laboratory experiments with controlled freezing rates and frequent sampling. We obtained consistent, almost constant, isotopic boundary layer thicknesses over a representative range of ice growth rates on both quiescent and well-mixed water. With the 18O boundary layer thickness from the laboratory, the model successfully quantified reduced river-ice growth rates relative to those of a nearby lake. These results were more representative and easier to obtain than those of a conventional thermal ice-growth model. This diffusion model validation and boundary layer thickness determination provide a powerful tool for interpreting the stable isotope stratigraphy of floating ice. The laboratory experiment also replicated successive fractionation events in response to a freeze-thaw-refreeze cycle, providing a mechanism for apparent ice fractionation that exceeds equilibrium. Analysis of the composition of snow ice and frazil ice in river and lake cores indicated surprising similarities between these ice forms. Published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Toward a Lake Ice Phenology Derived from VIIRS Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sütterlin, Melanie; Duguay-Tetzlaff, Anke; Wunderle, Stefan

2017-04-01

Ice cover on lakes plays an essential role in the physical, chemical, and biological processes of freshwater systems (e.g., ice duration controls the seasonal heat budget of lakes), and it also has many economic implications (e.g., for hydroelectricity, transportation, winter tourism). The variability and trends in the seasonal cycle of lake ice (e.g., timing of freeze-up and break-up) represent robust and direct indicators of climate change; they therefore emphasize the importance of monitoring lake ice phenology. Satellite remote sensing has proven its great potential for detecting and measuring the ice cover on lakes. Different remote sensing systems have been successfully used to collect recordings of freeze-up, break-up, and ice thickness and increase the spatial and temporal coverage of ground-based observations. Therefore, within the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Swiss project, "Integrated Monitoring of Ice in Selected Swiss Lakes," initiated by MeteoSwiss, satellite images from various sensors and different approaches are used and compared to perform investigations aimed at integrated monitoring of lake ice in Switzerland and contributing to the collection of lake ice phenology recordings. Within the framework of this project, the Remote Sensing Research Group of the University of Bern (RSGB) utilizes data acquired in the fine-resolution imagery (I) bands (1-5) of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor that is mounted onboard the SUOMI-NPP. Visible and near-infrared reflectances, as well as thermal infrared-derived lake surface water temperatures (LSWT), are used to retrieve lake ice phenology dates. The VIIRS instrument, which combines a high temporal resolution ( 2 times per day) with a reasonable spatial resolution (375 m), is equipped with a single broad-band thermal I-channel (I05). Thus, a single-channel LSWT retrieval algorithm is employed to correct for the atmospheric influence. The single channel algorithm applied in

Response of ice cover on shallow Arctic lakes to contemporary climate conditions: Numerical modeling and remote sensing data analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duguay, C.; Surdu, C.; Brown, L.; Samuelsson, P.

2012-04-01

Lake ice cover has been shown to be a robust indicator of climate variability and change. Recent studies have demonstrated that break-up dates, in particular, have been occurring earlier in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere over the last 50 years in response to warmer climatic conditions in the winter and spring seasons. The impacts of trends in air temperature and winter precipitation over the last five decades and those projected by global climate models will affect the timing and duration of ice cover (and ice thickness) on Arctic lakes. This will likely, in turn, have an important feedback effect on energy, water, and biogeochemical cycling in various regions of the Arctic. In the case of shallow tundra lakes, many of which are less than 3-m deep, warmer climate conditions could result in a smaller fraction of lakes that freeze to their bed in winter since thinner ice covers are expected to develop. Shallow lakes of the coastal plain of northern Alaska, and other similar regions of the Arctic, have likely been experiencing changes in seasonal ice thickness (and phenology) over the last few decades but these have not yet been documented. This paper presents results from a numerical lake ice modeling experiment and the analysis of ERS-1/2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to elucidate the response of ice cover (thickness, freezing to bed, and phenology) on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska (NSA)to climate conditions over the last three decades. New downscaled data specific for the Arctic domain (at a resolution of 0.44 degrees using ERA Interim Reanalysis as boundary condition) produced by the Rossby Centre regional atmospheric model (RCA4) was used to force the Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo) for the period 1979-2010. Output from CLIMo included freeze-up and break-up dates as well as ice thickness on a daily basis. ERS-1/2 data was used to map areas of shallow lakes that freeze to bed and when this happens (timing) in winter for the period 1991

Airborne profiling of ice thickness using a short pulse radar

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vickers, R. S.; Heighway, J. E.; Gedney, R. T.

1973-01-01

This paper describes helicopter-borne measurements of ice thickness in Lake Superior, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair river as part of NASA's program to develop an ice information system. The profiler described is a high resolution, nonimaging, short pulse radar, operating at a carrier frequency of 2.7 GHz. The system can resolve reflective surfaces separated by as little as 10 cm and permits measurement of the distance between resolvable surfaces with an accuracy of about 1 cm. Data samples are given for measurements both in a static (helicopter hovering), and a traverse mode. Ground truth measurements taken by an ice auger team traveling with the helicopter are compared with the remotely sensed data and the accuracy of the profiler is discussed based on these measurements.

Arctic sea ice decline contributes to thinning lake ice trend in northern Alaska

USGS Publications Warehouse

Alexeev, Vladimir; Arp, Christopher D.; Jones, Benjamin M.; Cai, Lei

2016-01-01

Field measurements, satellite observations, and models document a thinning trend in seasonal Arctic lake ice growth, causing a shift from bedfast to floating ice conditions. September sea ice concentrations in the Arctic Ocean since 1991 correlate well (r = +0.69,p < 0.001) to this lake regime shift. To understand how and to what extent sea ice affects lakes, we conducted model experiments to simulate winters with years of high (1991/92) and low (2007/08) sea ice extent for which we also had field measurements and satellite imagery characterizing lake ice conditions. A lake ice growth model forced with Weather Research and Forecasting model output produced a 7% decrease in lake ice growth when 2007/08 sea ice was imposed on 1991/92 climatology and a 9% increase in lake ice growth for the opposing experiment. Here, we clearly link early winter 'ocean-effect' snowfall and warming to reduced lake ice growth. Future reductions in sea ice extent will alter hydrological, biogeochemical, and habitat functioning of Arctic lakes and cause sub-lake permafrost thaw.

Microwave properties of ice from The Great Lakes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vickers, R. S.

1975-01-01

The increasing use of radar systems as remote sensors of ice thickness has revealed a lack of basic data on the microwave properties of fresh-water ice. A program, in which the complex dielectric constant was measured for a series of ice samples taken from the Great Lakes, is described. The measurements were taken at temperatures of -5, -10, and -15 C. It is noted that the ice has considerable internal layered structure, and the effects of the layering are examined. Values of 3.0 to 3.2 are reported for the real part of the dielectric constant, with an error bar of + or - 0.01.

Recent Ice thickness helicopter borne radar surveys in Patagonia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rivera, Andres; Zamora, Rodrigo; Andres Uribe, Jose; Oberreuter, Jonathan; Gacitua, Guisella; Rignot, Eric

2014-05-01

The Patagonian icefields are the biggest temperate ice bodies in southern hemisphere, which have experienced important areal shrinkage and thinning in recent decades, significantly contributing to sea level rise. The main driving factor behind this retreating condition is recent decade atmospheric warming explaining higher melting rates and equilibrium line altitude upward migration. Ice dynamic is also playing an important role especially in glaciers calving into deep fjords or lakes, type of glaciers that are predominant in the Patagonian icefields. In order to better understand their ice dynamics, several recent works have measured ice velocities using feature tracking and other techniques, however, ice thickness is still barely known. In spite of several on the ground radar measurements successfully detecting several hundred of m of ice thickness at the higher plateaus, this variable remains the great missing part of the equation especially when the thickness is approximately deeper than 600 m or where the glacier surfaces are very crevassed or nearby the Equilibrium line Altitude, where on the ground measurements are logistically constrained. In order to tackle the lack of thickness data, a helicopter borne radar system was used to survey several Patagonian temperate glaciers calving into fjords (Glaciares San Rafael and Jorge Montt) or lakes (Nef, Colonia and Steffen). The radar system is comprised by a hanging bow-tie dipole antenna working at a central frequency of 20 MHz. The antenna is an aluminum structure of 7 x 5 x 1.2 m weighting near 350 kg that is hanging at 20 m below a helicopter, and is connected to the helicopter cabin by an optical fiber cable. At the antenna are installed a 3,200 Volts peak transmitter, a two channel radar receiver, and an integrated GPS registering each trace. The helicopter flying speed was kept at near 40 knots and the antenna was normally hanging at 40 m above the ice. The surveys took place along predefined tracks

Ice formation in subglacial Lake Vostok, Central Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Souchez, R.; Petit, J. R.; Tison, J.-L.; Jouzel, J.; Verbeke, V.

2000-09-01

The investigation of chemical and isotopic properties in the lake ice from the Vostok ice core gives clues to the mechanisms involved in ice formation within the lake. A small lake water salinity can be reasonably deduced from the chemical data. Possible implications for the water circulation of Lake Vostok are developed. The characteristics of the isotopic composition of the lake ice indicate that ice formation in Lake Vostok occurred by frazil ice crystal generation due to supercooling as a consequence of rising waters and a possible contrast in water salinity. Subsequent consolidation of the developed loose ice crystals results in the accretion of ice to the ceiling of the lake.

Notable increases in nutrient concentrations in a shallow lake during seasonal ice growth.

PubMed

Fang, Yang; Changyou, Li; Leppäranta, Matti; Xiaonghong, Shi; Shengnan, Zhao; Chengfu, Zhang

2016-12-01

Nutrients may be eliminated from ice when liquid water is freezing, resulting in enhanced concentrations in the unfrozen water. The nutrients diluted from the ice may contribute to accumulated concentrations in sediment during winter and an increased risk of algae blooms during the following spring and summer. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of ice cover on nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations in the water and sediment of a shallow lake, through an examination of Ulansuhai Lake, northern China, from the period of open water to ice season in 2011-2013. The N and P concentrations were between two and five times higher, and between two and eight times higher, than in unfrozen lakes, respectively. As the ice thickness grew, contents of total N and total P showed C-shaped profiles in the ice, and were lower in the middle layer and higher in the bottom and surface layers. Most of the nutrients were released from the ice to liquid water. The results confirm that ice can cause the nutrient concentrations in water and sediment during winter to increase dramatically, thereby significantly impacting on processes in the water environment of shallow lakes.

Local response of a glacier to annual filling and drainage of an ice-marginal lake

USGS Publications Warehouse

Walder, J.S.; Trabant, D.C.; Cunico, M.; Fountain, A.G.; Anderson, S.P.; Anderson, R. Scott; Malm, A.

2006-01-01

Ice-marginal Hidden Creek Lake, Alaska, USA, outbursts annually over the course of 2-3 days. As the lake fills, survey targets on the surface of the 'ice dam' (the glacier adjacent to the lake) move obliquely to the ice margin and rise substantially. As the lake drains, ice motion speeds up, becomes nearly perpendicular to the face of the ice dam, and the ice surface drops. Vertical movement of the ice dam probably reflects growth and decay of a wedge of water beneath the ice dam, in line with established ideas about jo??kulhlaup mechanics. However, the distribution of vertical ice movement, with a narrow (50-100 m wide) zone where the uplift rate decreases by 90%, cannot be explained by invoking flexure of the ice dam in a fashion analogous to tidal flexure of a floating glacier tongue or ice shelf. Rather, the zone of large uplift-rate gradient is a fault zone: ice-dam deformation is dominated by movement along high-angle faults that cut the ice dam through its entire thickness, with the sense of fault slip reversing as the lake drains. Survey targets spanning the zone of steep uplift gradient move relative to one another in a nearly reversible fashion as the lake fills and drains. The horizontal strain rate also undergoes a reversal across this zone, being compressional as the lake fills, but extensional as the lake drains. Frictional resistance to fault-block motion probably accounts for the fact that lake level falls measurably before the onset of accelerated horizontal motion and vertical downdrop. As the overall fault pattern is the same from year to year, even though ice is lost by calving, the faults must be regularly regenerated, probably by linkage of surface and bottom crevasses as ice is advected toward the lake basin.

Fault-dominated deformation in an ice dam during annual filling and drainage of a marginal lake

USGS Publications Warehouse

Walder, J.S.; Trabant, D.C.; Cunico, M.; Anderson, S.P.; Anderson, R. Scott; Fountain, A.G.; Malm, A.

2005-01-01

Ice-dammed Hidden Creek Lake, Alaska, USA, outbursts annually in about 2-3 days. As the lake fills, a wedge of water penetrates beneath the glacier, and the surface of this 'ice dam' rises; the surface then falls as the lake drains. Detailed optical surveying of the glacier near the lake allows characterization of ice-dam deformation. Surface uplift rate is close to the rate of lake-level rise within about 400 m of the lake, then decreases by 90% over about 100 m. Such a steep gradient in uplift rate cannot be explained in terms of ice-dam flexure. Moreover, survey targets spanning the zone of steep uplift gradient move relative to one another in a nearly reversible fashion as the lake fills and drains. Evidently, the zone of steep uplift gradient is a fault zone, with the faults penetrating the entire thickness of the ice dam. Fault motion is in a reverse sense as the lake fills, but in a normal sense as the lake drains. As the overall fault pattern is the same from year to year, even though ice is lost by calving, the faults must be regularly regenerated, probably by linkage of surface and bottom crevasses as ice is advected toward the lake basin.

Remote Sensing of Lake Ice Phenology in Alaska

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, S.; Pavelsky, T.

2017-12-01

Lake ice phenology (e.g. ice break-up and freeze-up timing) in Alaska is potentially sensitive to climate change. However, there are few current lake ice records in this region, which hinders the comprehensive understanding of interactions between climate change and lake processes. To provide a lake ice database with over a comparatively long time period (2000 - 2017) and large spatial coverage (4000+ lakes) in Alaska, we have developed an algorithm to detect the timing of lake ice using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data. This approach generally consists of three major steps. First, we use a cloud mask (MOD09GA) to filter out satellite images with heavy cloud contamination. Second, daily MODIS reflectance values (MOD09GQ) of lake surface are used to extract ice pixels from water pixels. The ice status of lakes can be further identified based on the fraction of ice pixels. Third, to improve the accuracy of ice phenology detection, we execute post-processing quality control to reduce false ice events caused by outliers. We validate the proposed algorithm over six lakes by comparing with Landsat-based reference data. Validation results indicate a high correlation between the MODIS results and reference data, with normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) ranging from 1.7% to 4.6%. The time series of this lake ice product is then examined to analyze the spatial and temporal patterns of lake ice phenology.

Ground penetrating radar detection of subsnow slush on ice-covered lakes in interior Alaska

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gusmeroli, A.; Grosse, G.

2012-12-01

Lakes are abundant throughout the pan-Arctic region. For many of these lakes ice cover lasts for up to two thirds of the year. The frozen cover allows human access to these lakes, which are therefore used for many subsistence and recreational activities, including water harvesting, fishing, and skiing. Safe traveling condition onto lakes may be compromised, however, when, after significant snowfall, the weight of the snow acts on the ice and causes liquid water to spill through weak spots and overflow at the snow-ice interface. Since visual detection of subsnow slush is almost impossible our understanding on overflow processes is still very limited and geophysical methods that allow water and slush detection are desirable. In this study we demonstrate that a commercially available, lightweight 1 GHz, ground penetrating radar system can detect and map extent and intensity of overflow. The strength of radar reflections from wet snow-ice interfaces are at least twice as much in strength than returns from dry snow-ice interface. The presence of overflow also affects the quality of radar returns from the base of the lake ice. During dry conditions we were able to profile ice thickness of up to 1 m, conversely, we did not retrieve any ice-water returns in areas affected by overflow.

ERS-1 SAR monitoring of ice growth on shallow lakes to determine water depth and availability in north west Alaska

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jeffries, Martin; Morris, Kim; Liston, Glen

1996-01-01

Images taken by the ERS-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) were used to identify and to differentiate between the lakes that freeze completely to the bottom and those that do not, on the North Slope, in northwestern Alaska. The ice thickness at the time each lake froze completely is determined with numerical ice growth model that gives a maximum simulated thickness of 2.2 m. A method combining the ERS-1 SAR images and numerical ice growth model was used to determine the ice growth and the water availability in these regions.

Sedimentology and geochemistry of a perennially ice-covered epishelf lake in Bunger Hills Oasis, East Antarctica.

PubMed

Doran, P T; Wharton, R A; Lyons, W B; Des Marais, D J; Andersen, D T

2000-01-01

A process-oriented study was carried out in White Smoke lake, Bunger Hills, East Antarctica, a perennially ice-covered (1.8 to 2.8 m thick) epishelf (tidally-forced) lake. The lake water has a low conductivity and is relatively well mixed. Sediments are transferred from the adjacent glacier to the lake when glacier ice surrounding the sediment is sublimated at the surface and replaced by accumulating ice from below. The lake bottom at the west end of the lake is mostly rocky with a scant sediment cover. The east end contains a thick sediment profile. Grain size and delta 13C increase with sediment depth, indicating a more proximal glacier in the past. Sedimentary 210Pb and 137Cs signals are exceptionally strong, probably a result of the focusing effect of the large glacial catchment area. The post-bomb and pre-bomb radiocarbon reservoirs are c. 725 14C yr and c. 1950 14C yr, respectively. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the east end of the lake is >3 ka BP, while photographic evidence and the absence of sediment cover indicate that the west end has formed only over the last century. Our results indicate that the southern ice edge of Bunger Hills has been relatively stable with only minor fluctuations (on the scale of hundreds of metres) over the last 3000 years.

Coast Guard Assists with Mapping of Great Lakes Ice

NASA Image and Video Library

1976-11-21

A group of Coast Guard seamen leave their ship to verify ice formations on the Great Lakes as part of an joint effort with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The regular winter freezing of large portions of the Great Lakes stalled the shipping industry. Lewis began working on two complementary systems to monitor the ice. The Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) system used microwaves to measure the ice distribution and electromagnetic systems used noise modulation to determine the thickness of the ice. The images were then transferred via satellite to the Coast Guard station. The Coast Guard then transmitted the pertinent images by VHF to the ship captains to help them select the best route. The Great Lakes ice mapping devices were first tested on NASA aircraft during the winter of 1972 and 1973. The pulsed radar system was transferred to the Coast Guard’s C-130 aircraft for the 1975 and 1976 winter. The SLAR was installed in the rear cargo door, and the small S-band antenna was mounted to the underside of the aircraft. Coast Guard flights began in January 1975 at an altitude of 11,000 feet. Early in the program, teams of guardsmen and NASA researchers frequently set out in boats to take samples and measurements of the ice in order to verify the radar information.

Gravity anomaly at a Pleistocene lake bed in NW Alaska interpreted by analogy with Greenland's Lake Taserssauq and its floating ice tongue

USGS Publications Warehouse

Barnes, D.F.

1987-01-01

A possible example of a very deep glacial excavation is provided by a distinctive gravity low located at the front of a valley glacier that once flowed into glacial Lake Aniuk (formerly Lake Noatak) in the western Brooks Range. Geologic and geophysical data suggest that sediments or ice filling a glacially excavated valley are the most probable cause of the 30-50 mGal anomaly. Reasonable choices of geometric models and density contrasts indicate that the former excavation is now filled with a buried-ice thickness of 700 m or sediment thicknesses greater than 1 km. No direct evidence of efficient excavation was observed in Greenland, but efficient glacial erosion behind a floating polar ice tongue could explain the excavation that caused the Alaskan gravity anomaly. -from Author

RADARSAT-2 Polarimetry for Lake Ice Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pan, Feng; Kang, Kyung-Kuk; Duguay, Claude

2016-04-01

Changes in the ice regime of lakes can be employed to assess long-term climate trends and variability in high latitude regions. Lake ice cover observations are not only useful for climate monitoring, but also for improving ice and weather forecasts using numerical prediction models. In recent years, satellite remote sensing has assumed a greater role in observing lake ice cover for both purposes. Radar remote sensing has become an essential tool for mapping lake ice at high latitudes where cloud cover and polar darkness severely limits ice observations from optical systems. In Canada, there is an emerging interest by government agencies to evaluate the potential of fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from RADARSAT-2 (C-band) for lake ice monitoring. In this study, we processed and analyzed the polarization states and scattering mechanisms of fully polarimetric RADARSAT-2 data obtained over Great Bear Lake, Canada, to identify open water and different ice types during the freeze-up and break-up periods. Polarimetric decompositions were employed to separate polarimetric measurements into basic scattering mechanisms. Entropy, anisotropy, and alpha angle were derived to characterize the scattering heterogeneity and mechanisms. Ice classes were then determined based on entropy and alpha angle using the unsupervised Wishart classifier and results evaluated against Landsat 8 imagery. Preliminary results suggest that the RADARSAT-2 polarimetric data offer a strong capability for identifying open water and different lake ice types.

Enhanced ice sheet growth in Eurasia owing to adjacent ice-dammed lakes.

PubMed

Krinner, G; Mangerud, J; Jakobsson, M; Crucifix, M; Ritz, C; Svendsen, J I

2004-01-29

Large proglacial lakes cool regional summer climate because of their large heat capacity, and have been shown to modify precipitation through mesoscale atmospheric feedbacks, as in the case of Lake Agassiz. Several large ice-dammed lakes, with a combined area twice that of the Caspian Sea, were formed in northern Eurasia about 90,000 years ago, during the last glacial period when an ice sheet centred over the Barents and Kara seas blocked the large northbound Russian rivers. Here we present high-resolution simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model that explicitly simulates the surface mass balance of the ice sheet. We show that the main influence of the Eurasian proglacial lakes was a significant reduction of ice sheet melting at the southern margin of the Barents-Kara ice sheet through strong regional summer cooling over large parts of Russia. In our simulations, the summer melt reduction clearly outweighs lake-induced decreases in moisture and hence snowfall, such as has been reported earlier for Lake Agassiz. We conclude that the summer cooling mechanism from proglacial lakes accelerated ice sheet growth and delayed ice sheet decay in Eurasia and probably also in North America.

Ecology under lake ice.

PubMed

Hampton, Stephanie E; Galloway, Aaron W E; Powers, Stephen M; Ozersky, Ted; Woo, Kara H; Batt, Ryan D; Labou, Stephanie G; O'Reilly, Catherine M; Sharma, Sapna; Lottig, Noah R; Stanley, Emily H; North, Rebecca L; Stockwell, Jason D; Adrian, Rita; Weyhenmeyer, Gesa A; Arvola, Lauri; Baulch, Helen M; Bertani, Isabella; Bowman, Larry L; Carey, Cayelan C; Catalan, Jordi; Colom-Montero, William; Domine, Leah M; Felip, Marisol; Granados, Ignacio; Gries, Corinna; Grossart, Hans-Peter; Haberman, Juta; Haldna, Marina; Hayden, Brian; Higgins, Scott N; Jolley, Jeff C; Kahilainen, Kimmo K; Kaup, Enn; Kehoe, Michael J; MacIntyre, Sally; Mackay, Anson W; Mariash, Heather L; McKay, Robert M; Nixdorf, Brigitte; Nõges, Peeter; Nõges, Tiina; Palmer, Michelle; Pierson, Don C; Post, David M; Pruett, Matthew J; Rautio, Milla; Read, Jordan S; Roberts, Sarah L; Rücker, Jacqueline; Sadro, Steven; Silow, Eugene A; Smith, Derek E; Sterner, Robert W; Swann, George E A; Timofeyev, Maxim A; Toro, Manuel; Twiss, Michael R; Vogt, Richard J; Watson, Susan B; Whiteford, Erika J; Xenopoulos, Marguerite A

2017-01-01

Winter conditions are rapidly changing in temperate ecosystems, particularly for those that experience periods of snow and ice cover. Relatively little is known of winter ecology in these systems, due to a historical research focus on summer 'growing seasons'. We executed the first global quantitative synthesis on under-ice lake ecology, including 36 abiotic and biotic variables from 42 research groups and 101 lakes, examining seasonal differences and connections as well as how seasonal differences vary with geophysical factors. Plankton were more abundant under ice than expected; mean winter values were 43.2% of summer values for chlorophyll a, 15.8% of summer phytoplankton biovolume and 25.3% of summer zooplankton density. Dissolved nitrogen concentrations were typically higher during winter, and these differences were exaggerated in smaller lakes. Lake size also influenced winter-summer patterns for dissolved organic carbon (DOC), with higher winter DOC in smaller lakes. At coarse levels of taxonomic aggregation, phytoplankton and zooplankton community composition showed few systematic differences between seasons, although literature suggests that seasonal differences are frequently lake-specific, species-specific, or occur at the level of functional group. Within the subset of lakes that had longer time series, winter influenced the subsequent summer for some nutrient variables and zooplankton biomass. © 2016 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by CNRS and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ice-dammed lateral lake and epishelf lake insights into Holocene dynamics of Marguerite Trough Ice Stream and George VI Ice Shelf, Alexander Island, Antarctic Peninsula

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davies, Bethan J.; Hambrey, Michael J.; Glasser, Neil F.; Holt, Tom; Rodés, Angél; Smellie, John L.; Carrivick, Jonathan L.; Blockley, Simon P. E.

2017-12-01

We present new data regarding the past dynamics of Marguerite Trough Ice Stream, George VI Ice Shelf and valley glaciers from Ablation Point Massif on Alexander Island, Antarctic Peninsula. This ice-free oasis preserves a geological record of ice stream lateral moraines, ice-dammed lakes, ice-shelf moraines and valley glacier moraines, which we dated using cosmogenic nuclide ages. We provide one of the first detailed sediment-landform assemblage descriptions of epishelf lake shorelines. Marguerite Trough Ice Stream imprinted lateral moraines against eastern Alexander Island at 120 m at Ablation Point Massif. During deglaciation, lateral lakes formed in the Ablation and Moutonnée valleys, dammed against the ice stream in George VI Sound. Exposure ages from boulders on these shorelines yielded ages of 13.9 to 9.7 ka. Following recession of the ice stream, George VI Ice Shelf formed in George VI Sound. An epishelf lake formed at 15-20 m asl in Ablation and Moutonnée valleys, dated from 9.4 to 4.6 ka, suggesting that the lake was stable and persistent for some 5000 years. Lake-level lowering occurred after this, with the lake level at 12 m at 3.1 ± 0.4 ka and at 5 m asl today. A readvance of the valley glaciers on Alexander Island at 4.4 ± 0.7 ka is recorded by valley glacier moraines overlying epishelf lake sediments. We speculate that the glacier readvance, which occurred during a period of warmth, may have been caused by a dynamic response of the glaciers to a lowering in surface elevation of George VI Ice Shelf.

Recent lake ice-out phenology within and among lake districts of Alaska, U.S.A.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Arp, Christopher D.; Jones, Benjamin M.; Grosse, Guido

2013-01-01

The timing of ice-out in high latitudes is a fundamental threshold for lake ecosystems and an indicator of climate change. In lake-rich regions, the loss of ice cover also plays a key role in landscape and climatic processes. Thus, there is a need to understand lake ice phenology at multiple scales. In this study, we observed ice-out timing on 55 large lakes in 11 lake districts across Alaska from 2007 to 2012 using satellite imagery. Sensor networks in two lake districts validated satellite observations and provided comparison with smaller lakes. Over this 6 yr period, the mean lake ice-out for all lakes was 27 May and ranged from 07 May in Kenai to 06 July in Arctic Coastal Plain lake districts with relatively low inter-annual variability. Approximately 80% of the variation in ice-out timing was explained by the date of 0°C air temperature isotherm and lake area. Shoreline irregularity, watershed area, and river connectivity explained additional variation in some districts. Coherence in ice-out timing within the lakes of each district was consistently strong over this 6 yr period, ranging from r-values of 0.5 to 0.9. Inter-district analysis of coherence also showed synchronous ice-out patterns with the exception of the two arctic coastal districts where ice-out occurs later (June–July) and climatology is sea-ice influenced. These patterns of lake ice phenology provide a spatially extensive baseline describing short-term temporal variability, which will help decipher longer term trends in ice phenology and aid in representing the role of lake ice in land and climate models in northern landscapes.

Sensitivity of Great Lakes Ice Cover to Air Temperature

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Austin, J. A.; Titze, D.

2016-12-01

Ice cover is shown to exhibit a strong linear sensitivity to air temperature. Upwards of 70% of ice cover variability on all of the Great Lakes can be explained in terms of air temperature, alone, and nearly 90% of ice cover variability can be explained in some lakes. Ice cover sensitivity to air temperature is high, and a difference in seasonally-averaged (Dec-May) air temperature on the order of 1°C to 2°C can be the difference between a low-ice year and a moderate- to high- ice year. The total amount of seasonal ice cover is most influenced by air temperatures during the meteorological winter, contemporaneous with the time of ice formation. Air temperature conditions during the pre-winter conditioning period and during the spring melting period were found to have less of an impact on seasonal ice cover. This is likely due to the fact that there is a negative feedback mechanism when heat loss goes toward cooling the lake, but a positive feedback mechanism when heat loss goes toward ice formation. Ice cover sensitivity relationships were compared between shallow coastal regions of the Great Lakes and similarly shallow smaller, inland lakes. It was found that the sensitivity to air temperature is similar between these coastal regions and smaller lakes, but that the absolute amount of ice that forms varies significantly between small lakes and the Great Lakes, and amongst the Great Lakes themselves. The Lake Superior application of the ROMS three-dimensional hydrodynamic numerical model verifies a deterministic linear relationship between air temperature and ice cover, which is also strongest around the period of ice formation. When the Lake Superior bathymetry is experimentally adjusted by a constant vertical multiplier, average lake depth is shown to have a nonlinear relationship with seasonal ice cover, and this nonlinearity may be associated with a nonlinear increase in the lake-wide volume of the surface mixed layer.

A Digital 3D-Reconstruction of the Younger Dryas Baltic Ice Lake

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jakobsson, M.; Alm, G.; Bjorck, S.; Lindeberg, G.; Svensson, N.

2005-12-01

A digital 3D-reconstruction of the final stage of the ice dammed Baltic Ice Lake (BIL), dated to the very end of the Younger Dryas cold period (ca. 11 600 cal. yr BP) has been compiled using a combined bathymetric-topographic Digital Terrain Model (DTM), Scandinavian ice sheet limits, Baltic Sea Holocene bottom sediment thickness information, and a paleoshoreline database maintained at the Lund University. The combined bathymetric-topographic Digital Terrain Model (DTM) model used to reconstruct the ice dammed lake was compiled specifically for this study from publicly available data sets. The final DTM is in the form of a digital grid on Lamberts Equal Area projection with a resolution of 500 x 500 m, which permits a much more detailed reconstruction of the BIL than previously made. The lake was constructed through a series of experiments where mathematical algorithms were applied to fit the paleolake's surface through the shoreline database. The accumulated Holocene bottom sediments in the Baltic Sea were subsequently subtracted from the present bathymetry in our reconstruction. This allows us to estimate the Baltic Ice Lake's paleobathymetry, area, volume, and hypsometry, which will comprise key input data to lake/climate modeling exercises following this study. The Scandinavian ice sheet margin eventually retreated north of Mount Billingen, which was the high point in terrain of Southern central Sweden bordering to lower terrain further to the North. As a consequence, the BIL was catastrophically drained through this area, resulting in a 25 m drop of the lake level. With our digital BIL model we estimate that approximately 7, 800 km3 of water drained during this event and that the ice dammed lake area was reduced with ca 18 percent. The digital BIL reconstruction is analyzed using 3D-visualization techniques that provide new detailed information on the paleogeography in the area, both before and after the lake drainage, with implications for interpretations of

Ice-walled-lake plains: Implications for the origin of hummocky glacial topography in middle North America

USGS Publications Warehouse

Clayton, L.; Attig, J.W.; Ham, N.R.; Johnson, M.D.; Jennings, C.E.; Syverson, K.M.

2008-01-01

Ice-walled-lake plains are prominent in many areas of hummocky-till topography left behind as the Laurentide Ice Sheet melted from middle North America. The formation of the hummocky-till topography has been explained by: (1) erosion by subglacial floods; (2) squeezing of subglacial till up into holes in stagnant glacial ice; or (3) slumping of supraglacial till. The geomorphology and stratigraphy of ice-walled-lake plains provide evidence that neither the lake plains nor the adjacent hummocks are of subglacial origin. These flat lake plains, up to a few kilometers in diameter, are perched as much as a few tens of meters above surrounding depressions. They typically are underlain by laminated, fine-grained suspended-load lake sediment. Many ice-walled-lake plains are surrounded by a low rim ridge of coarser-grained shore sediment or by a steeper rim ridge of debris that slumped off the surrounding ice slopes. The ice-walled lakes persisted for hundreds to thousands of years following glacial stagnation. Shells of aquatic molluscs from several deposits of ice-walled-lake sediment in south-central North Dakota have been dated from about 13 500 to 10 500??B.P. (calibrated radiocarbon ages), indicating a climate only slightly cooler than present. This is confirmed by recent palaeoecological studies in nearby non-glacial sites. To survive so long, the stagnant glacial ice had to be well-insulated by a thick cover of supraglacial sediment, and the associated till hummocks must be composed primarily of collapsed supraglacial till. ?? 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Lake Ice Monitoring with Webcams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, M.; Rothermel, M.; Tom, M.; Galliani, S.; Baltsavias, E.; Schindler, K.

2018-05-01

Continuous monitoring of climate indicators is important for understanding the dynamics and trends of the climate system. Lake ice has been identified as one such indicator, and has been included in the list of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs). Currently there are two main ways to survey lake ice cover and its change over time, in-situ measurements and satellite remote sensing. The challenge with both of them is to ensure sufficient spatial and temporal resolution. Here, we investigate the possibility to monitor lake ice with video streams acquired by publicly available webcams. Main advantages of webcams are their high temporal frequency and dense spatial sampling. By contrast, they have low spectral resolution and limited image quality. Moreover, the uncontrolled radiometry and low, oblique viewpoints result in heavily varying appearance of water, ice and snow. We present a workflow for pixel-wise semantic segmentation of images into these classes, based on state-of-the-art encoder-decoder Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). The proposed segmentation pipeline is evaluated on two sequences featuring different ground sampling distances. The experiment suggests that (networks of) webcams have great potential for lake ice monitoring. The overall per-pixel accuracies for both tested data sets exceed 95 %. Furthermore, per-image discrimination between ice-on and ice-off conditions, derived by accumulating per-pixel results, is 100 % correct for our test data, making it possible to precisely recover freezing and thawing dates.

Arctic ice cover, ice thickness and tipping points.

PubMed

Wadhams, Peter

2012-02-01

We summarize the latest results on the rapid changes that are occurring to Arctic sea ice thickness and extent, the reasons for them, and the methods being used to monitor the changing ice thickness. Arctic sea ice extent had been shrinking at a relatively modest rate of 3-4% per decade (annually averaged) but after 1996 this speeded up to 10% per decade and in summer 2007 there was a massive collapse of ice extent to a new record minimum of only 4.1 million km(2). Thickness has been falling at a more rapid rate (43% in the 25 years from the early 1970s to late 1990s) with a specially rapid loss of mass from pressure ridges. The summer 2007 event may have arisen from an interaction between the long-term retreat and more rapid thinning rates. We review thickness monitoring techniques that show the greatest promise on different spatial and temporal scales, and for different purposes. We show results from some recent work from submarines, and speculate that the trends towards retreat and thinning will inevitably lead to an eventual loss of all ice in summer, which can be described as a 'tipping point' in that the former situation, of an Arctic covered with mainly multi-year ice, cannot be retrieved.

Antarctic lakes (above and beneath the ice sheet): Analogues for Mars

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rice, J. W., Jr.

1992-01-01

The perennial ice covered lakes of the Antarctic are considered to be excellent analogues to lakes that once existed on Mars. Field studies of ice covered lakes, paleolakes, and polar beaches were conducted in the Bunger Hills Oasis, Eastern Antarctica. These studies are extended to the Dry Valleys, Western Antarctica, and the Arctic. Important distinctions were made between ice covered and non-ice covered bodies of water in terms of the geomorphic signatures produced. The most notable landforms produced by ice covered lakes are ice shoved ridges. These features form discrete segmented ramparts of boulders and sediments pushed up along the shores of lakes and/or seas. Sub-ice lakes have been discovered under the Antarctic ice sheet using radio echo sounding. These lakes occur in regions of low surface slope, low surface accumulations, and low ice velocity, and occupy bedrock hollows. The presence of sub-ice lakes below the Martian polar caps is possible. The discovery of the Antarctic sub-ice lakes raises possibilities concerning Martian lakes and exobiology.

Sea Ice Thickness Measurement by Ground Penetrating Radar for Ground Truth of Microwave Remote Sensing Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matsumoto, M.; Yoshimura, M.; Naoki, K.; Cho, K.; Wakabayashi, H.

2018-04-01

Observation of sea ice thickness is one of key issues to understand regional effect of global warming. One of approaches to monitor sea ice in large area is microwave remote sensing data analysis. However, ground truth must be necessary to discuss the effectivity of this kind of approach. The conventional method to acquire ground truth of ice thickness is drilling ice layer and directly measuring the thickness by a ruler. However, this method is destructive, time-consuming and limited spatial resolution. Although there are several methods to acquire ice thickness in non-destructive way, ground penetrating radar (GPR) can be effective solution because it can discriminate snow-ice and ice-sea water interface. In this paper, we carried out GPR measurement in Lake Saroma for relatively large area (200 m by 300 m, approximately) aiming to obtain grand truth for remote sensing data. GPR survey was conducted at 5 locations in the area. The direct measurement was also conducted simultaneously in order to calibrate GPR data for thickness estimation and to validate the result. Although GPR Bscan image obtained from 600MHz contains the reflection which may come from a structure under snow, the origin of the reflection is not obvious. Therefore, further analysis and interpretation of the GPR image, such as numerical simulation, additional signal processing and use of 200 MHz antenna, are required to move on thickness estimation.

RADARSAT-2 Polarimetric Radar Imaging for Lake Ice Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pan, F.; Kang, K.; Duguay, C. R.

2016-12-01

Changes in lake ice dates and duration are useful indicators for assessing long-term climate trends and variability in northern countries. Lake ice cover observations are also a valuable data source for predictions with numerical ice and weather forecasting models. In recent years, satellite remote sensing has assumed a greater role in providing observations of lake ice cover extent for both modeling and climate monitoring purposes. Polarimetric radar imaging has become a promising tool for lake ice mapping at high latitudes where meteorological conditions and polar darkness severely limit observations from optical sensors. In this study, we assessed and characterized the physical scattering mechanisms of lake ice from fully polarimetric RADARSAT-2 datasets obtained over Great Bear Lake, Canada, with the intent of classifying open water and different ice types during the freeze-up and break-up periods. Model-based and eigen-based decompositions were employed to construct the coherency matrix into deterministic scattering mechanisms. These procedures as well as basic polarimetric parameters were integrated into modified convolutional neural networks (CNN). The CNN were modified via introduction of a Markov random field into the higher iterative layers of networks for acquiring updated priors and classifying ice and open water areas over the lake. We show that the selected polarimetric parameters can help with interpretation of radar-ice/water interactions and can be used successfully for water-ice segmentation, including different ice types. As more satellite SAR sensors are being launched or planned, such as the Sentinel-1a/b series and the upcoming RADARSAT Constellation Mission, the rapid volume growth of data and their analysis require the development of robust automated algorithms. The approach developed in this study was therefore designed with the intent of moving towards fully automated mapping of lake ice for consideration by ice services.

ROV dives under Great Lakes ice

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bolsenga, S.J.; Gannon, John E.; Kennedy, Gregory; Norton, D.C.; Herdendorf, Charles E.

1989-01-01

Observations of the underside of ice have a wide variety of applications. Severe under-ice roughness can affect ice movements, rough under-ice surfaces can scour the bottom disturbing biota and man-made structures such as pipelines, and the flow rate of rivers is often affected by under-ice roughness. A few reported observations of the underside of an ice cover have been made, usually by cutting a large block of ice and overturning it, by extensive boring, or by remote sensing. Such operations are extremely labor-intensive and, in some cases, prone to inaccuracies. Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) can partially solve these problems. In this note, we describe the use, performance in a hostile environment, and results of a study in which a ROV was deployed under the ice in Lake Erie (North American Great Lakes).

Mass Fluxes of Ice and Oxygen Across the Entire Lid of Lake Vostok from Observations of Englacial Radiowave Attenuation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winebrenner, D. P.; Kintner, P. M. S.; MacGregor, J. A.

2017-12-01

Over deep Antarctic subglacial lakes, spatially varying ice thickness and the pressure-dependent melting point of ice result in areas of melting and accretion at the ice-water interface, i.e., the lake lid. These ice mass fluxes drive lake circulation and, because basal Antarctic ice contains air-clathrate, affect the input of oxygen to the lake, with implications for subglacial life. Inferences of melting and accretion from radar-layer tracking and geodesy are limited in spatial coverage and resolution. Here we develop a new method to estimate rates of accretion, melting, and the resulting oxygen input at a lake lid, using airborne radar data over Lake Vostok together with ice-temperature and chemistry data from the Vostok ice core. Because the lake lid is a coherent reflector of known reflectivity (at our radar frequency), we can infer depth-averaged radiowave attenuation in the ice, with spatial resolution 1 km along flight lines. Spatial variation in attenuation depends mostly on variation in ice temperature near the lid, which in turn varies strongly with ice mass flux at the lid. We model ice temperature versus depth with ice mass flux as a parameter, thus linking that flux to (observed) depth-averaged attenuation. The resulting map of melt- and accretion-rates independently reproduces features known from earlier studies, but now covers the entire lid. We find that accretion is dominant when integrated over the lid, with an ice imbalance of 0.05 to 0.07 km3 a-1, which is robust against uncertainties.

Characterization of subglacial Lake Vostok as seen from physical and isotope properties of accreted ice.

PubMed

Lipenkov, Vladimir Ya; Ekaykin, Alexey A; Polyakova, Ekaterina V; Raynaud, Dominique

2016-01-28

Deep drilling at the Vostok Station has reached the surface of subglacial Lake Vostok (LV) twice-in February 2012 and January 2015. As a result, three replicate cores from boreholes 5G-1, 5G-2 and 5G-3 became available for detailed and revalidation analyses of the 230 m thickness of the accreted ice, down to its contact with water at 3769 m below the surface. The study reveals that the concentration of gases in the lake water beneath Vostok is unexpectedly low. A clear signature of the melt water in the surface layer of the lake, which is subject to refreezing on the icy ceiling of LV, has been discerned in the three different properties of the accreted ice: the ice texture, the isotopic and the gas content of the ice. These sets of data indicate in concert that poor mixing of the melt (and hydrothermal) water with the resident lake water and pronounced spatial and/or temporal variability of local hydrological conditions are likely to be the characteristics of the southern end of the lake. The latter implies that the surface water may be not representative enough to study LV's behaviour, and that direct sampling of the lake at different depths is needed in order to move ahead with our understanding of the lake's hydrological regime. © 2015 The Author(s).

Response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska to contemporary climate conditions (1950-2011): radar remote-sensing and numerical modeling data analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Surdu, C. M.; Duguay, C. R.; Brown, L. C.; Fernández Prieto, D.

2014-01-01

Air temperature and winter precipitation changes over the last five decades have impacted the timing, duration, and thickness of the ice cover on Arctic lakes as shown by recent studies. In the case of shallow tundra lakes, many of which are less than 3 m deep, warmer climate conditions could result in thinner ice covers and consequently, in a smaller fraction of lakes freezing to their bed in winter. However, these changes have not yet been comprehensively documented. The analysis of a 20 yr time series of European remote sensing satellite ERS-1/2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data and a numerical lake ice model were employed to determine the response of ice cover (thickness, freezing to the bed, and phenology) on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska (NSA) to climate conditions over the last six decades. Given the large area covered by these lakes, changes in the regional climate and weather are related to regime shifts in the ice cover of the lakes. Analysis of available SAR data from 1991 to 2011, from a sub-region of the NSA near Barrow, shows a reduction in the fraction of lakes that freeze to the bed in late winter. This finding is in good agreement with the decrease in ice thickness simulated with the Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo), a lower fraction of lakes frozen to the bed corresponding to a thinner ice cover. Observed changes of the ice cover show a trend toward increasing floating ice fractions from 1991 to 2011, with the greatest change occurring in April, when the grounded ice fraction declined by 22% (α = 0.01). Model results indicate a trend toward thinner ice covers by 18-22 cm (no-snow and 53% snow depth scenarios, α = 0.01) during the 1991-2011 period and by 21-38 cm (α = 0.001) from 1950 to 2011. The longer trend analysis (1950-2011) also shows a decrease in the ice cover duration by ~24 days consequent to later freeze-up dates by 5.9 days (α = 0.1) and earlier break-up dates by 17.7-18.6 days (α = 0.001).

Response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska to contemporary climate conditions (1950-2011): radar remote sensing and numerical modeling data analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Surdu, C. M.; Duguay, C. R.; Brown, L. C.; Fernández Prieto, D.

2013-07-01

Air temperature and winter precipitation changes over the last five decades have impacted the timing, duration, and thickness of the ice cover on Arctic lakes as shown by recent studies. In the case of shallow tundra lakes, many of which are less than 3 m deep, warmer climate conditions could result in thinner ice covers and consequently, to a smaller fraction of lakes freezing to their bed in winter. However, these changes have not yet been comprehensively documented. The analysis of a 20 yr time series of ERS-1/2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data and a numerical lake ice model were employed to determine the response of ice cover (thickness, freezing to the bed, and phenology) on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska (NSA) to climate conditions over the last six decades. Analysis of available SAR data from 1991-2011, from a sub-region of the NSA near Barrow, shows a reduction in the fraction of lakes that freeze to the bed in late winter. This finding is in good agreement with the decrease in ice thickness simulated with the Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo), a lower fraction of lakes frozen to the bed corresponding to a thinner ice cover. Observed changes of the ice cover show a trend toward increasing floating ice fractions from 1991 to 2011, with the greatest change occurring in April, when the grounded ice fraction declined by 22% (α = 0.01). Model results indicate a trend toward thinner ice covers by 18-22 cm (no-snow and 53% snow depth scenarios, α = 0.01) during the 1991-2011 period and by 21-38 cm (α = 0.001) from 1950-2011. The longer trend analysis (1950-2011) also shows a decrease in the ice cover duration by ∼24 days consequent to later freeze-up dates by 5.9 days (α = 0.1) and earlier break-up dates by 17.7-18.6 days (α = 0.001).

Hydraulic Model Study of Port Huron Ice Control Structure,

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-11-01

thickness for Lake Huron, Alpena , M ichigan, data...measurements was Alpena , Michigan. The following table summarizes these monthly values in terms of degree days. The solid ice sheet thickness for a...ice thickness for Lake Huron, Alpena , Michigan, data. Freezing degree days Cumulative Ice thickness CDays FDys , ’C Day) E CF Day) () (ft) Jan 277

Moat Development and Evolution on a Perennialy Ice-Covered Lake in East Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wayt, M. E.; Myers, K. F.; Doran, P.

2017-12-01

Lake Fryxell is a closed basin lake located in the lower end of Taylor Valley in McMurdo Dry Valleys of east Antarctica. The lake has an 4 m thick perennial ice-cover, however during the austral summers an ice-free moat forms around the lake margin due to increased temperatures and stream run off. Satellite imagery paired with ground-based camera data from Lake Fryxell were used to determine onset of moat formation, moat duration, and total area of open water at peak formation from 2009 through 2015. Temperature data from a meteorological station on the shore of Lake Fryxell were used to correlate degree days above freezing (DDAF) with moat formation and extent. The results showed that overall, the moat was smallest in 2009-10, accounting for roughly .61% percent of the surface area of Lake Fryxell. In 2010-11 and 2011-12 moat extent increase by roughly 1% and then decreased by 4% in 2012-13. In 2013-14 the moat was at its largest, accounting for about 11% with a decrease in area of 6% the following summer. Preliminary analysis of temperature data suggest a correlation between DDAF and moat extent. Moats make up on average 9% of lake area and are likely sites of elevated primary productivity in the summer. Moats are ice free which allows for unobstructed photosynthetically active radiation to penetrate the shallow water column. We hypothesize projected increases in air temperatures will lead to continued rise in lake level and larger moat areas, making it critical to understand these delicate and rapidly changing ecosystems.

Reconstructing lake ice cover in subarctic lakes using a diatom-based inference model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weckström, Jan; Hanhijärvi, Sami; Forsström, Laura; Kuusisto, Esko; Korhola, Atte

2014-03-01

A new quantitative diatom-based lake ice cover inference model was developed to reconstruct past ice cover histories and applied to four subarctic lakes. The used ice cover model is based on a calculated melting degree day value of +130 and a freezing degree day value of -30 for each lake. The reconstructed Holocene ice cover duration histories show similar trends to the independently reconstructed regional air temperature history. The ice cover duration was around 7 days shorter than the average ice cover duration during the warmer early Holocene (approximately 10 to 6.5 calibrated kyr B.P.) and around 3-5 days longer during the cool Little Ice Age (approximately 500 to 100 calibrated yr B.P.). Although the recent climate warming is represented by only 2-3 samples in the sediment series, these show a rising trend in the prolonged ice-free periods of up to 2 days. Diatom-based ice cover inference models can provide a powerful tool to reconstruct past ice cover histories in remote and sensitive areas where no measured data are available.

Hydrograph Predictions of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods From an Ice-Dammed Lake

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCoy, S. W.; Jacquet, J.; McGrath, D.; Koschitzki, R.; Okuinghttons, J.

2017-12-01

Understanding the time evolution of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), and ultimately predicting peak discharge, is crucial to mitigating the impacts of GLOFs on downstream communities and understanding concomitant surface change. The dearth of in situ measurements taken during GLOFs has left many GLOF models currently in use untested. Here we present a dataset of 13 GLOFs from Lago Cachet Dos, Aysen Region, Chile in which we detail measurements of key environmental variables (total volume drained, lake temperature, and lake inflow rate) and high temporal resolution discharge measurements at the source lake, in addition to well-constrained ice thickness and bedrock topography. Using this dataset we test two common empirical equations as well as the physically-based model of Spring-Hutter-Clarke. We find that the commonly used empirical relationships based solely on a dataset of lake volume drained fail to predict the large variability in observed peak discharges from Lago Cachet Dos. This disagreement is likely because these equations do not consider additional environmental variables that we show also control peak discharge, primarily, lake water temperature and the rate of meltwater inflow to the source lake. We find that the Spring-Hutter-Clarke model can accurately simulate the exponentially rising hydrographs that are characteristic of ice-dammed GLOFs, as well as the order of magnitude variation in peak discharge between events if the hydraulic roughness parameter is allowed to be a free fitting parameter. However, the Spring-Hutter-Clarke model over predicts peak discharge in all cases by 10 to 35%. The systematic over prediction of peak discharge by the model is related to its abrupt flood termination that misses the observed steep falling limb of the flood hydrograph. Although satisfactory model fits are produced, the range in hydraulic roughness required to obtain these fits across all events was large, which suggests that current models do not

Diatom assemblages promote ice formation in large lakes

PubMed Central

D'souza, N A; Kawarasaki, Y; Gantz, J D; Lee, R E; Beall, B F N; Shtarkman, Y M; Koçer, Z A; Rogers, S O; Wildschutte, H; Bullerjahn, G S; McKay, R M L

2013-01-01

We present evidence for the directed formation of ice by planktonic communities dominated by filamentous diatoms sampled from the ice-covered Laurentian Great Lakes. We hypothesize that ice formation promotes attachment of these non-motile phytoplankton to overlying ice, thereby maintaining a favorable position for the diatoms in the photic zone. However, it is unclear whether the diatoms themselves are responsible for ice nucleation. Scanning electron microscopy revealed associations of bacterial epiphytes with the dominant diatoms of the phytoplankton assemblage, and bacteria isolated from the phytoplankton showed elevated temperatures of crystallization (Tc) as high as −3 °C. Ice nucleation-active bacteria were identified as belonging to the genus Pseudomonas, but we could not demonstrate that they were sufficiently abundant to incite the observed freezing. Regardless of the source of ice nucleation activity, the resulting production of frazil ice may provide a means for the diatoms to be recruited to the overlying lake ice, thereby increasing their fitness. Bacterial epiphytes are likewise expected to benefit from their association with the diatoms as recipients of organic carbon excreted by their hosts. This novel mechanism illuminates a previously undescribed stage of the life cycle of the meroplanktonic diatoms that bloom in Lake Erie and other Great Lakes during winter and offers a model relevant to aquatic ecosystems having seasonal ice cover around the world. PMID:23552624

Bathymetry of Patagonia glacier fjords and glacier ice thickness from high-resolution airborne gravity combined with other data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

An, L.; Rignot, E.; Rivera, A.; Bunetta, M.

2012-12-01

The North and South Patagonia Ice fields are the largest ice masses outside Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. During the period 1995-2000, these glaciers lost ice at a rate equivalent to a sea level rise of 0.105 ± 0.001 mm/yr. In more recent years, the glaciers have been thinning more quickly than can be explained by warmer air temperatures and decreased precipitation. A possible cause is an increase in flow speed due to enhanced ablation of the submerged glacier fronts. To understand the dynamics of these glaciers and how they change with time, it is critical to have a detailed view of their ice thickness, the depth of the glacier bed below sea or lake level, how far inland these glaciers remain below sea or lake level, and whether bumps or hollows in the bed may slow down or accelerate their retreat. A grid of free-air gravity data over the Patagonia Glaciers was collected in May 2012 and October 2012, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) to measure ice thickness and sea floor bathymetry. This survey combines the Sander Geophysics Limited (SGL) AIRGrav system, SGL laser altimetry and Chilean CECS/UCI ANDREA-2 radar. To obtain high-resolution and high-precision gravity data, the helicopter operates at 50 knots (25.7 m/s) with a grid spacing of 400m and collects gravity data at sub mGal level (1 Gal =1 Galileo = 1 cm/s2) near glacier fronts. We use data from the May 2012 survey to derive preliminarily high-resolution, high-precision thickness estimates and bathymetry maps of Jorge Montt Glacier and San Rafael Glacier. Boat bathymetry data is used to optimize the inversion of gravity over water and radar-derived thickness over glacier ice. The bathymetry maps will provide a breakthrough in our knowledge of the ice fields and enable a new era of glacier modeling and understanding that is not possible at present because ice thickness is not known.

Passive microwave studies of frozen lakes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hall, D. K.; Foster, J. L.; Rango, A.; Chang, A. T. C.

1978-01-01

Lakes of various sizes, depths and ice thicknesses in Alaska, Utah and Colorado were overflown with passive microwave sensors providing observations at several wavelengths. A layer model is used to calculate the microwave brightness temperature, T sub B (a function of the emissivity and physical temperatures of the object), of snowcovered ice underlain with water. Calculated T sub B's are comparable to measured T sub B's. At short wavelengths, e.g., 0.8 cm, T sub B data provide information on the near surface properties of ice covered lakes where the long wavelength, 21.0 cm, observations sense the entire thickness of ice including underlying water. Additionally, T sub B is found to increase with ice thickness. 1.55 cm observations on Chandalar Lake in Alaska show a T sub B increase of 38 K with an approximate 124 cm increase in ice thickness.

Microbiota within the perennial ice cover of Lake Vida, Antarctica.

PubMed

Mosier, Annika C; Murray, Alison E; Fritsen, Christian H

2007-02-01

Lake Vida, located in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, is an 'ice-sealed' lake with approximately 19 m of ice covering a highly saline water column (approximately 245 ppt). The lower portions of the ice cover and the lake beneath have been isolated from the atmosphere and land for circa 2800 years. Analysis of microbial assemblages within the perennial ice cover of the lake revealed a diverse array of bacteria and eukarya. Bacterial and eukaryal denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis phylotype profile similarities were low (<59%) between all of the depths compared (five depths spanning 11 m of the ice cover), with the greatest differences occurring between surface and deep ice. The majority of bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences in the surface ice were related to Actinobacteria (42%) while Gammaproteobacteria (52%) dominated the deep ice community. Comparisons of assemblage composition suggest differences in ice habitability and organismal origin in the upper and lower portions of ice cover. Specifically, the upper ice cover microbiota likely reflect the modern day transport and colonization of biota from the terrestrial landscape, whereas assemblages in the deeper ice are more likely to be persistent remnant biota that originated from the ancient liquid water column of the lake that froze.

Changes in Arctic Sea Ice Thickness and Floe Size

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, J.; Schweiger, A. J. B.; Stern, H. L., III; Steele, M.

2016-12-01

A thickness, floe size, and enthalpy distribution sea ice model was implemented into the Pan-arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) by coupling the Zhang et al. [2015] sea ice floe size distribution (FSD) theory with the Thorndike et al. [1975] ice thickness distribution (ITD) theory in order to explicitly simulate multicategory FSD and ITD simultaneously. A range of ice thickness and floe size observations were used for model calibration and validation. The expanded, validated PIOMAS was used to study sea ice response to atmospheric and oceanic changes in the Arctic, focusing on the interannual variability and trends of ice thickness and floe size over the period 1979-2015. It is found that over the study period both ice thickness and floe size have been decreasing steadily in the Arctic. The simulated ice thickness shows considerable spatiotemporal variability in recent years. As the ice cover becomes thinner and weaker, the model simulates an increasing number of small floes (at the low end of the FSD), which affects sea ice properties, particularly in the marginal ice zone.

The distribution, structure, and composition of freshwater ice deposits in Bolivian salt lakes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hurlbert, S.H.; Chang, Cecily C.Y.

1988-01-01

Freshwater ice deposits are described from seven, high elevation (4117-4730 m), shallow (mean depth <30 cm), saline (10-103 g l-1) lakes in the southwestern corner of Bolivia. The ice deposits range to several hundred meters in length and to 7 m in height above the lake or playa surface. They are located near the lake or salar margins; some are completely surrounded by water, others by playa deposits or salt crusts. Upper surfaces and sides of the ice deposits usually are covered by 20-40 cm of white to light brown, dry sedimentary materials. Calcite is the dominant crystalline mineral in these, and amorphous materials such as diatom frustules and volcanic glass are also often abundant. Beneath the dry overburden the ice occurs primarily as horizontal lenses 1-1000 mm thick, irregularly alternating with strata of frozen sedimentary materials. Ice represents from 10 to 87% of the volume of the deposits and yields freshwater (TFR <3 g l-1) when melted. Oxygen isotope ratios for ice are similar to those for regional precipitation and shoreline seeps but much lower than those for the lakewaters. Geothermal flux is high in the region as evidenced by numerous hot springs and deep (3.0-3.5 m) sediment temperatures of 5-10??C. This flux is one cause of the present gradual wasting away of these deposits. Mean annual air temperatures for the different lakes probably are all in the range of -2 to 4??C, and mean midwinter temperatures about 5??C lower. These deposits apparently formed during colder climatic conditions by the freezing of low salinity porewaters and the building up of segregation ice lenses. ?? 1988 Dr W. Junk Publishers.

Winter severity determines functional trait composition of phytoplankton in seasonally ice-covered lakes.

PubMed

Özkundakci, Deniz; Gsell, Alena S; Hintze, Thomas; Täuscher, Helgard; Adrian, Rita

2016-01-01

How climate change will affect the community dynamics and functionality of lake ecosystems during winter is still little understood. This is also true for phytoplankton in seasonally ice-covered temperate lakes which are particularly vulnerable to the presence or absence of ice. We examined changes in pelagic phytoplankton winter community structure in a north temperate lake (Müggelsee, Germany), covering 18 winters between 1995 and 2013. We tested how phytoplankton taxa composition varied along a winter-severity gradient and to what extent winter severity shaped the functional trait composition of overwintering phytoplankton communities using multivariate statistical analyses and a functional trait-based approach. We hypothesized that overwintering phytoplankton communities are dominated by taxa with trait combinations corresponding to the prevailing winter water column conditions, using ice thickness measurements as a winter-severity indicator. Winter severity had little effect on univariate diversity indicators (taxon richness and evenness), but a strong relationship was found between the phytoplankton community structure and winter severity when taxon trait identity was taken into account. Species responses to winter severity were mediated by the key functional traits: motility, nutritional mode, and the ability to form resting stages. Accordingly, one or the other of two functional groups dominated the phytoplankton biomass during mild winters (i.e., thin or no ice cover; phototrophic taxa) or severe winters (i.e., thick ice cover; exclusively motile taxa). Based on predicted milder winters for temperate regions and a reduction in ice-cover durations, phytoplankton communities during winter can be expected to comprise taxa that have a relative advantage when the water column is well mixed (i.e., need not be motile) and light is less limiting (i.e., need not be mixotrophic). A potential implication of this result is that winter severity promotes different

Multiple climate regimes in an idealized lake-ice-atmosphere model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sugiyama, Noriyuki; Kravtsov, Sergey; Roebber, Paul

2018-01-01

In recent decades, the Laurentian Great Lakes have undergone rapid surface warming with the summertime trends substantially exceeding the warming rates of surrounding land. Warming of the deepest (Lake Superior) was the strongest, and that of the shallowest (Lake Erie)—the weakest of all lakes. To investigate the dynamics of accelerated lake warming, we considered single-column and multi-column thermodynamic lake-ice models coupled to an idealized two-layer atmosphere. The variable temperature of the upper atmospheric layer—a proxy for the large-scale atmospheric forcing—consisted, in the most general case, of a linear trend mimicking the global warming and atmospheric interannual variability, both on top of the prescribed seasonal cycle of the upper-air temperature. The atmospheric boundary layer of the coupled model exchanged heat with the lake and exhibited lateral diffusive heat transports between the adjacent atmospheric columns. In simpler single-column models, we find that, for a certain range of periodic atmospheric forcing, each lake possesses two stable equilibrium seasonal cycles, which we call "regimes"—with and without lake-ice occurrence in winter and with corresponding cold and warm temperatures in the following summer, respectively, all under an identical seasonally varying external forcing. Deeper lakes exhibit larger differences in their summertime surface water temperature between the warm and cold regimes, due to their larger thermal and dynamical inertia. The regime behavior of multi-column coupled models is similar but more complex, and in some cases, they admit more than two stable equilibrium seasonal cycles, with varying degrees of wintertime ice-cover. The simulated lake response to climate change in the presence of the atmospheric noise rationalizes the observed accelerated warming of the lakes, the correlation between wintertime ice cover and next summer's lake-surface temperature, as well as higher warming trends of the

Developing A Model for Lake Ice Phenology Using Satellite Remote Sensing Observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Skoglund, S. K.; Weathers, K. C.; Norouzi, H.; Prakash, S.; Ewing, H. A.

2017-12-01

Many northern temperate freshwater lakes are freezing over later and thawing earlier. This shift in timing, and the resulting shorter duration of seasonal ice cover, is expected to impact ecological processes, negatively affecting aquatic species and the quality of water we drink. Long-term, direct observations have been used to analyze changes in ice phenology, but those data are sparse relative to the number of lakes affected. Here we develop a model to utilize remote sensing data in approximating the dates of ice-on and ice-off for many years over a variety of lakes. Day and night surface temperatures from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Aqua and Terra (MYD11A1 and MOD11A1 data products) for 2002-2017 were utilized in combination with observed ice-on and ice-off dates of Lake Auburn, Maine, to determine the ability of MODIS data to match ground-based observations. A moving average served to interpolate MODIS temperature data to fill data gaps from cloudy days. The nighttime data were used for ice-off, and the daytime measurements were used for ice-on predictions to avoid fluctuations between day and night ice/water status. The 0˚C intercepts of those data were used to mark approximate days of ice-on or ice-off. This revealed that approximations for ice-off dates were satisfactory (average ±8.2 days) for Lake Auburn as well as for Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire (average ±8.1 days), while approximations for Lake Auburn ice-on were less accurate and showed consistently earlier-than-observed ice-on dates (average -33.8 days). The comparison of observed and remotely sensed Lake Auburn ice cover duration showed relative agreement with a correlation coefficient of 0.46. Other remote sensing observations, such as the new GOES-R satellite, and further exploration of the ice formation process can improve ice-on approximation methods. The model shows promise for estimating ice-on, ice-off, and ice cover duration for northern temperate lakes.

Bayesian inference of ice thickness from remote-sensing data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Werder, Mauro A.; Huss, Matthias

2017-04-01

Knowledge about ice thickness and volume is indispensable for studying ice dynamics, future sea-level rise due to glacier melt or their contribution to regional hydrology. Accurate measurements of glacier thickness require on-site work, usually employing radar techniques. However, these field measurements are time consuming, expensive and sometime downright impossible. Conversely, measurements of the ice surface, namely elevation and flow velocity, are becoming available world-wide through remote sensing. The model of Farinotti et al. (2009) calculates ice thicknesses based on a mass conservation approach paired with shallow ice physics using estimates of the surface mass balance. The presented work applies a Bayesian inference approach to estimate the parameters of a modified version of this forward model by fitting it to both measurements of surface flow speed and of ice thickness. The inverse model outputs ice thickness as well the distribution of the error. We fit the model to ten test glaciers and ice caps and quantify the improvements of thickness estimates through the usage of surface ice flow measurements.

Ancient ice islands in salt lakes of the Central Andes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hurlbert, S.H.; Chang, Cecily C.Y.

1984-01-01

Massive blocks of freshwater ice and frozen sediments protrude from shallow, saline lakes in the Andes of southwestern Bolivia and northeastern Chile. These ice islands range up to 1.5 kilometers long, stand up to 7 meters above the water surface, and may extend out tens of meters and more beneath the unfrozen lake sediments. The upper surfaces of the islands are covered with dry white sediments, mostly aragonite or calcite. The ice blocks may have formed by freezing of the fresh pore water of lake sediments during the "little ice age." The largest blocks are melting rapidly because of possibly recent increases in geothermal heat flux through the lake bottom and undercutting by warm saline lake water during the summer.

Evidence of form II RubisCO (cbbM) in a perennially ice-covered Antarctic lake.

PubMed

Kong, Weidong; Dolhi, Jenna M; Chiuchiolo, Amy; Priscu, John; Morgan-Kiss, Rachael M

2012-11-01

The permanently ice-covered lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, harbor microbially dominated food webs. These organisms are adapted to a variety of unusual environmental extremes, including low temperature, low light, and permanently stratified water columns with strong chemo- and oxy-clines. Owing to the low light levels during summer caused by thick ice cover as well as 6 months of darkness during the polar winter, chemolithoautotrophic microorganisms could play a key role in the production of new carbon for the lake ecosystems. We used clone library sequencing and real-time quantitative PCR of the gene encoding form II Ribulose 1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase to determine spatial and seasonal changes in the chemolithoautotrophic community in Lake Bonney, a 40-m-deep lake covered by c. 4 m of permanent ice. Our results revealed that chemolithoautotrophs harboring the cbbM gene are restricted to layers just above the chemo- and oxi-cline (≤ 15 m) in the west lobe of Lake Bonney (WLB). Our data reveal that the WLB is inhabited by a unique chemolithoautotrophic community that resides in the suboxic layers of the lake where there are ample sources of alternative electron sources such as ammonium, reduced iron and reduced biogenic sulfur species. © 2012 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ice duration drives winter nitrate accumulation in north temperate lakes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Powers, Steven M; Labou, Stephanie G.; Baulch, Helen M.; Hunt, Randall J.; Lottig, Noah R.; Hampton, Stephanie E.; Stanley, Emily H.

2017-01-01

The duration of winter ice cover on lakes varies substantially with climate variability, and has decreased over the last several decades in many temperate lakes. However, little is known of how changes in seasonal ice cover may affect biogeochemical processes under ice. We examined winter nitrogen (N) dynamics under ice using a 30+ yr dataset from five oligotrophic/mesotrophic north temperate lakes to determine how changes in inorganic N species varied with ice duration. Nitrate accumulated during winter and was strongly related to the number of days since ice-on. Exogenous inputs accounted for less than 3% of nitrate accumulation in four of the five lakes, suggesting a paramount role of nitrification in regulating N transformation and the timing of chemical conditions under ice. Winter nitrate accumulation rates ranged from 0.15 μg N L−1 d−1 to 2.7 μg N L−1 d−1 (0.011–0.19 μM d−1), and the mean for intermediate depths was 0.94 μg N L−1 d−1(0.067 μM d−1). Given that winters with shorter ice duration (< 120 d) have become more frequent in these lakes since the late 1990s, peak winter nitrate concentrations and cumulative nitrate production under ice may be declining. As ice extent and duration change, the physical and chemical conditions supporting life will shift. This research suggests we may expect changes in the form and amount of inorganic N, and altered dissolved nitrogen : phosphorus ratios, in lakes during winters with shorter ice duration.

A Mathematical Model of Melt Lake Development on an Ice Shelf

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buzzard, S. C.; Feltham, D. L.; Flocco, D.

2018-02-01

The accumulation of surface meltwater on ice shelves can lead to the formation of melt lakes. Melt lakes have been implicated in ice shelf collapse; Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf was observed to have a large amount of surface melt lakes present preceding its collapse in 2002. Such collapse can affect ocean circulation and temperature, cause habitat loss and contribute to sea level rise through the acceleration of tributary glaciers. We present a mathematical model of a surface melt lake on an idealized ice shelf. The model incorporates a calculation of the ice shelf surface energy balance, heat transfer through the firn, the production and percolation of meltwater into the firn, the formation of ice lenses, and the development and refreezing of surface melt lakes. The model is applied to the Larsen C Ice Shelf, where melt lakes have been observed. This region has warmed several times the global average over the last century and the Larsen C firn layer could become saturated with meltwater by the end of the century. When forced with weather station data, our model produces surface melting, meltwater accumulation, and melt lake development consistent with observations. We examine the sensitivity of lake formation to uncertain parameters and provide evidence of the importance of processes such as lateral meltwater transport. We conclude that melt lakes impact surface melt and firn density and warrant inclusion in dynamic-thermodynamic models of ice shelf evolution within climate models, of which our model could form the basis for the thermodynamic component.

Large subglacial lakes in East Antarctica at the onset of fast-flowing ice streams.

PubMed

Bell, Robin E; Studinger, Michael; Shuman, Christopher A; Fahnestock, Mark A; Joughin, Ian

2007-02-22

Water plays a crucial role in ice-sheet stability and the onset of ice streams. Subglacial lake water moves between lakes and rapidly drains, causing catastrophic floods. The exact mechanisms by which subglacial lakes influence ice-sheet dynamics are unknown, however, and large subglacial lakes have not been closely associated with rapidly flowing ice streams. Here we use satellite imagery and ice-surface elevations to identify a region of subglacial lakes, similar in total area to Lake Vostok, at the onset region of the Recovery Glacier ice stream in East Antarctica and predicted by ice-sheet models. We define four lakes through extensive, flat, featureless regions of ice surface bounded by upstream troughs and downstream ridges. Using ice velocities determined using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), we find the onset of rapid flow (moving at 20 to 30 m yr(-1)) of the tributaries to the Recovery Glacier ice stream in a 280-km-wide segment at the downslope margins of these four subglacial lakes. We conclude that the subglacial lakes initiate and maintain rapid ice flow through either active modification of the basal thermal regime of the ice sheet by lake accretion or through scouring bedrock channels in periodic drainage events. We suggest that the role of subglacial lakes needs to be considered in ice-sheet mass balance assessments.

Modeling the impediment of methane ebullition bubbles by seasonal lake ice

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Greene, S.; Walter Anthony, K. M.; Archer, D.

Microbial methane (CH 4) ebullition (bubbling) from anoxic lake sediments comprises a globally significant flux to the atmosphere, but ebullition bubbles in temperate and polar lakes can be trapped by winter ice cover and later released during spring thaw. This "ice-bubble storage" (IBS) constitutes a novel mode of CH 4 emission. Before bubbles are encapsulated by downward-growing ice, some of their CH 4 dissolves into the lake water, where it may be subject to oxidation. We present field characterization and a model of the annual CH 4 cycle in Goldstream Lake, a thermokarst (thaw) lake in interior Alaska. We findmore » that summertime ebullition dominates annual CH 4 emissions to the atmosphere. Eighty percent of CH 4 in bubbles trapped by ice dissolves into the lake water column in winter, and about half of that is oxidized. The ice growth rate and the magnitude of the CH 4 ebullition flux are important controlling factors of bubble dissolution. Seven percent of annual ebullition CH 4 is trapped as IBS and later emitted as ice melts. In a future warmer climate, there will likely be less seasonal ice cover, less IBS, less CH 4 dissolution from trapped bubbles, and greater CH 4 emissions from northern lakes.« less

Modeling the impediment of methane ebullition bubbles by seasonal lake ice

DOE PAGES

Greene, S.; Walter Anthony, K. M.; Archer, D.; ...

2014-12-08

Microbial methane (CH 4) ebullition (bubbling) from anoxic lake sediments comprises a globally significant flux to the atmosphere, but ebullition bubbles in temperate and polar lakes can be trapped by winter ice cover and later released during spring thaw. This "ice-bubble storage" (IBS) constitutes a novel mode of CH 4 emission. Before bubbles are encapsulated by downward-growing ice, some of their CH 4 dissolves into the lake water, where it may be subject to oxidation. We present field characterization and a model of the annual CH 4 cycle in Goldstream Lake, a thermokarst (thaw) lake in interior Alaska. We findmore » that summertime ebullition dominates annual CH 4 emissions to the atmosphere. Eighty percent of CH 4 in bubbles trapped by ice dissolves into the lake water column in winter, and about half of that is oxidized. The ice growth rate and the magnitude of the CH 4 ebullition flux are important controlling factors of bubble dissolution. Seven percent of annual ebullition CH 4 is trapped as IBS and later emitted as ice melts. In a future warmer climate, there will likely be less seasonal ice cover, less IBS, less CH 4 dissolution from trapped bubbles, and greater CH 4 emissions from northern lakes.« less

Retrieval of ice thickness from polarimetric SAR data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kwok, R.; Yueh, S. H.; Nghiem, S. V.; Huynh, D. D.

1993-01-01

We describe a potential procedure for retrieving ice thickness from multi-frequency polarimetric SAR data for thin ice. This procedure includes first masking out the thicker ice types with a simple classifier and then deriving the thickness of the remaining pixels using a model-inversion technique. The technique used to derive ice thickness from polarimetric observations is provided by a numerical estimator or neural network. A three-layer perceptron implemented with the backpropagation algorithm is used in this investigation with several improved aspects for a faster convergence rate and a better accuracy of the neural network. These improvements include weight initialization, normalization of the output range, the selection of offset constant, and a heuristic learning algorithm. The performance of the neural network is demonstrated by using training data generated by a theoretical scattering model for sea ice matched to the database of interest. The training data are comprised of the polarimetric backscattering coefficients of thin ice and the corresponding input ice parameters to the scattering model. The retrieved ice thickness from the theoretical backscattering coefficients is compare with the input ice thickness to the scattering model to illustrate the accuracy of the inversion method. Results indicate that the network convergence rate and accuracy are higher when multi-frequency training sets are presented. In addition, the dominant backscattering coefficients in retrieving ice thickness are found by comparing the behavior of the network trained backscattering data at various incidence angels. After the neural network is trained with the theoretical backscattering data at various incidence anges, the interconnection weights between nodes are saved and applied to the experimental data to be investigated. In this paper, we illustrate the effectiveness of this technique using polarimetric SAR data collected by the JPL DC-8 radar over a sea ice scene.

Seismic evidence for the erosion of subglacial sediments by rapidly draining supraglacial lakes on the West Greenland Ice Sheet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kulessa, Bernd; Booth, Adam; Hubbard, Alun; Dow, Christine; Doyle, Samuel; Clark, Roger; Gusmeroli, Alessio; Lindbäck, Katrin; Pettersson, Rickard; Jones, Glenn; Murray, Tavi

2013-04-01

As part of a multi-disciplinary, multi-national project investigating the ice-dynamic implications of rapidly draining supraglacial lakes on the West Greenland Ice Sheet, we have conducted a series of seismic reflection experiments immediately following the rapid drainage of Lake F in the land-terminating Russell Glacier catchment to [1] isolate the principal mode of basal motion, and [2] identify and characterise the modification of that mode as forced by ingress of surface-derived meltwaters. Lake F had a surface area of ~3.84 km2 and drained entirely in less than two hours at a maximum rate of ~ 3300 m3 s-1, marked by local ice extension and uplift of up to 1 m. Two seismic profiles (A and B) were acquired and optimised for amplitude versus angle (AVA) characterisation of the substrate. All seismic data were recorded with a Geometrics GEODE system, using 48 vertically-orientated 100-Hz geophones installed at 10 m intervals. 250 g pentalite charges were fired in shallow auger holes at 80 m intervals along each line, providing six-fold coverage. Profile A targets the subglacial hydrological basin into which the Lake-F waters drained, and reveals a uniform, flat glacier bed beneath ~1.3 km of ice, characterised by the presence of a very stiff till with an acoustic impedance of 4.17 ± 0.11 x 106 kg m-2 s1 and a Poisson's ratio of 0.06 ± 0.05. In profile B, to the southeast of Lake F in an isolated subglacial hydrological basin, ice thickness is 1.0-1.1 km and a discrete sedimentary basin is evident; within this feature, we interpret a stratified subglacial till deposit, having lodged till (acoustic impedance = 4.26 ± 0.59×106 kgm-2 s-1) underlying a water-saturated dilatant till layer (thickness

Airborne thickness and freeboard measurements over the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica, and implications for ice density

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rack, Wolfgang; Haas, Christian; Langhorne, Pat J.

2013-11-01

We present airborne measurements to investigate the thickness of the western McMurdo Ice Shelf in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica. Because of basal accretion of marine ice and brine intrusions conventional radar systems are limited in detecting the ice thickness in this area. In November 2009, we used a helicopter-borne laser and electromagnetic induction sounder (EM bird) to measure several thickness and freeboard profiles across the ice shelf. The maximum electromagnetically detectable ice thickness was about 55 m. Assuming hydrostatic equilibrium, the simultaneous measurement of ice freeboard and thickness was used to derive bulk ice densities ranging from 800 to 975 kg m-3. Densities higher than those of pure ice can be largely explained by the abundance of sediments accumulated at the surface and present within the ice shelf, and are likely to a smaller extent related to the overestimation of ice thickness by the electromagnetic induction measurement related to the presence of a subice platelet layer. The equivalent thickness of debris at a density of 2800 kg m-3 is found to be up to about 2 m thick. A subice platelet layer below the ice shelf, similar to what is observed in front of the ice shelf below the sea ice, is likely to exist in areas of highest thickness. The thickness and density distribution reflects a picture of areas of basal freezing and supercooled Ice Shelf Water emerging from below the central ice shelf cavity into McMurdo Sound.

Grumman OV-1B Mohawk Maps the Ice over the Great Lakes

NASA Image and Video Library

1973-03-21

A Grumman OV-1B Mohawk maps Great Lakes’ ice flows for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The regular freezing of large portions of the Great Lakes during the winter frequently stalled the region’s shipping industry. Lewis developed two complementary systems to monitor the ice. The Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) system used microwaves to measure the ice distribution, and electromagnetic systems employed noise modulation to determine the thickness of the ice. Once this dual system was in place, the information could be generated during a single pass of a research aircraft and quickly distributed to ship captains planning their routes. The SLAR was superior to aerial photography for this task because it was able to penetrate cloud cover. The SLAR system used pulsed microwaves to examine a band of ice or water on either side of the aircraft up to 31 miles wide. The Lewis ice mapping devices were first tested during the winter of 1972 and 1973. The system was installed on the tail of the Coast Guard’s OV-1B aircraft. An infrared thermal mapping instrument was installed on Lewis’ DC-3 to determine the ice temperature and estimate its thickness. The team created 160 ice charts that were sent to 28 ships and 2 icebreakers. Shipping was able to continue throughout the season for the first time that winter.

Will Arctic sea ice thickness initialization improve seasonal forecast skill?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Day, J. J.; Hawkins, E.; Tietsche, S.

2014-11-01

Arctic sea ice thickness is thought to be an important predictor of Arctic sea ice extent. However, coupled seasonal forecast systems do not generally use sea ice thickness observations in their initialization and are therefore missing a potentially important source of additional skill. To investigate how large this source is, a set of ensemble potential predictability experiments with a global climate model, initialized with and without knowledge of the sea ice thickness initial state, have been run. These experiments show that accurate knowledge of the sea ice thickness field is crucially important for sea ice concentration and extent forecasts up to 8 months ahead, especially in summer. Perturbing sea ice thickness also has a significant impact on the forecast error in Arctic 2 m temperature a few months ahead. These results suggest that advancing capabilities to observe and assimilate sea ice thickness into coupled forecast systems could significantly increase skill.

Acoustic architecture of glaciolacustrine sediments deformed during zonal stagnation of the Laurentide Ice Sheet; Mazinaw Lake, Ontario, Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eyles, Nicholas; Doughty, Mike; Boyce, Joseph I.; Mullins, Henry T.; Halfman, John D.; Koseoglu, Berkant

2003-03-01

In North America, the last (Laurentide) Ice Sheet retreated from much of the Canadian Shield by 'zonal stagnation'. Masses of dead ice, severed from the main ice sheet by emerging bedrock highs, downwasted in situ within valleys and lake basins and were commonly buried by sediment. Consequently, the flat sediment floors of many valleys and lakes are now pitted by steep-sided, enclosed depressions (kettle basins) that record the melt of stagnant ice blocks and collapse of sediment. At Mazinaw Lake in eastern Ontario, Canada, high-resolution seismic reflection, magnetic and bathymetric surveys, integrated with onland outcrop and hammer seismic investigations, were conducted to identify the types of structural disturbance associated with the formation of kettle basins in glaciolacustrine sediments. Basins formed as a result of ice blocks being trapped within a regionally extensive proglacial lake (Glacial Lake Iroquois ˜12,500 to 11,400 years BP) that flooded eastern Ontario during deglaciation. Kettles occur within a thick (>30 m) succession of parallel, high-frequency acoustic facies consisting of rhythmically laminated (varved?) Iroquois silty-clays. Iroquois strata underlying and surrounding kettle basins show large-scale normal faults, fractures, rotational failures and incoherent chaotically bedded sediment formed by slumping and collapse. Mazinaw Lake lies along part of the Ottawa Graben and while neotectonic earthquake activity cannot be entirely dismissed, deformation is most likely to have occurred as a result of the rapid melt of buried ice blocks. Seismic data do not fully penetrate the entire basin sediment fill but the structure and topography of bedrock can be inferred from magnetometer data. The location and shape of buried ice masses was closely controlled by the graben-like form of the underlying bedrock surface.

Ice thickness measurements and volume estimates for glaciers in Norway

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreassen, Liss M.; Huss, Matthias; Melvold, Kjetil; Elvehøy, Hallgeir; Winsvold, Solveig H.

2014-05-01

Whereas glacier areas in many mountain regions around the world now are well surveyed using optical satellite sensors and available in digital inventories, measurements of ice thickness are sparse in comparison and a global dataset does not exist. Since the 1980s ice thickness measurements have been carried out by ground penetrating radar on many glaciers in Norway, often as part of contract work for hydropower companies with the aim to calculate hydrological divides of ice caps. Measurements have been conducted on numerous glaciers, covering the largest ice caps as well as a few smaller mountain glaciers. However, so far no ice volume estimate for Norway has been derived from these measurements. Here, we give an overview of ice thickness measurements in Norway, and use a distributed model to interpolate and extrapolate the data to provide an ice volume estimate of all glaciers in Norway. We also compare the results to various volume-area/thickness-scaling approaches using values from the literature as well as scaling constants we obtained from ice thickness measurements in Norway. Glacier outlines from a Landsat-derived inventory from 1999-2006 together with a national digital elevation model were used as input data for the ice volume calculations. The inventory covers all glaciers in mainland Norway and consists of 2534 glaciers (3143 glacier units) covering an area of 2692 km2 ± 81 km2. To calculate the ice thickness distribution of glaciers in Norway we used a distributed model which estimates surface mass balance distribution, calculates the volumetric balance flux and converts it into thickness using the flow law for ice. We calibrated this model with ice thickness data for Norway, mainly by adjusting the mass balance gradient. Model results generally agree well with the measured values, however, larger deviations were found for some glaciers. The total ice volume of Norway was estimated to be 275 km3 ± 30 km3. From the ice thickness data set we selected

Satellite Observations of Antarctic Sea Ice Thickness and Volume

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kurtz, Nathan; Markus, Thorsten

2012-01-01

We utilize satellite laser altimetry data from ICESat combined with passive microwave measurements to analyze basin-wide changes in Antarctic sea ice thickness and volume over a 5 year period from 2003-2008. Sea ice thickness exhibits a small negative trend while area increases in the summer and fall balanced losses in thickness leading to small overall volume changes. Using a five year time-series, we show that only small ice thickness changes of less than -0.03 m/yr and volume changes of -266 cu km/yr and 160 cu km/yr occurred for the spring and summer periods, respectively. The calculated thickness and volume trends are small compared to the observational time period and interannual variability which masks the determination of long-term trend or cyclical variability in the sea ice cover. These results are in stark contrast to the much greater observed losses in Arctic sea ice volume and illustrate the different hemispheric changes of the polar sea ice covers in recent years.

Reduced Duration of Ice Cover in Swedish Lakes and Rivers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

AghaKouchak, A.; Hallerback, S. A. M.; Stensen, K.; David, G.; Persson, M.

2016-12-01

The worlds freshwater systems are one of the most altered ecosystems on earth. Climate change introduces additional stresses on such systems, and this study presents an example of such change in an investigation of ice cover duration in Swedish lakes and rivers. In situ observations from over 750 lakes and rivers in Sweden were analyzed, with some records dating back to the beginning of the 18th century. Results show that ice duration significantly decreased over the last century. Change in ice duration is affected by later freeze as well as (more dominantly) earlier breakup dates. Additionally, since the late 1980's there has been an increase of extreme events, meaning years with extremely short duration of ice cover. The affect of temperature on the system was also examined. Using 113 years of temperature data, we empirically show how temperature changes affect the ice duration in lakes at different latitudes as well as dependent on lake area, volume and depth.

Microwave Observations of Snow-Covered Freshwater Lake Ice obtained during the Great Lakes Winter EXperiment (GLAWEX), 2017

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gunn, G. E.; Hall, D. K.; Nghiem, S. V.

2017-12-01

Studies observing lake ice using active microwave acquisitions suggest that the dominant scattering mechanism in ice is caused by double-bounce of the signal off vertical tubular bubble inclusions. Recent polarimetric SAR observations and target decomposition algorithms indicate single-bounce interactions may be the dominant source of returns, and in the absence of field observations, has been hypothesized to be the result of roughness at the ice-water interface on the order of incident wavelengths. This study presents in-situ physical observations of snow-covered lake ice in western Michigan and Wisconsin acquired during the Great Lakes Winter EXperiment in 2017 (GLAWEX'17). In conjunction with NASA's SnowEx airborne snow campaign in Colorado (http://snow.nasa.gov), C- (Sentinel-1, RADARSAT-2) and X-band (TerraSAR-X) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) observations were acquired coincidently to surface physical snow and ice observations. Small/large scale roughness features at the ice-water interface are quantified through auger transects and used as an input variable in lake ice backscatter models to assess the relative contributions from different scattering mechanisms.

High interannual variability of sea ice thickness in the Arctic region.

PubMed

Laxon, Seymour; Peacock, Neil; Smith, Doug

2003-10-30

Possible future changes in Arctic sea ice cover and thickness, and consequent changes in the ice-albedo feedback, represent one of the largest uncertainties in the prediction of future temperature rise. Knowledge of the natural variability of sea ice thickness is therefore critical for its representation in global climate models. Numerical simulations suggest that Arctic ice thickness varies primarily on decadal timescales owing to changes in wind and ocean stresses on the ice, but observations have been unable to provide a synoptic view of sea ice thickness, which is required to validate the model results. Here we use an eight-year time-series of Arctic ice thickness, derived from satellite altimeter measurements of ice freeboard, to determine the mean thickness field and its variability from 65 degrees N to 81.5 degrees N. Our data reveal a high-frequency interannual variability in mean Arctic ice thickness that is dominated by changes in the amount of summer melt, rather than by changes in circulation. Our results suggest that a continued increase in melt season length would lead to further thinning of Arctic sea ice.

Advances in modelling subglacial lakes and their interaction with the Antarctic ice sheet.

PubMed

Pattyn, Frank; Carter, Sasha P; Thoma, Malte

2016-01-28

Subglacial lakes have long been considered hydraulically isolated water bodies underneath ice sheets. This view changed radically with the advent of repeat-pass satellite altimetry and the discovery of multiple lake discharges and water infill, associated with water transfer over distances of more than 200 km. The presence of subglacial lakes also influences ice dynamics, leading to glacier acceleration. Furthermore, subglacial melting under the Antarctic ice sheet is more widespread than previously thought, and subglacial melt rates may explain the availability for water storage in subglacial lakes and water transport. Modelling of subglacial water discharge in subglacial lakes essentially follows hydraulics of subglacial channels on a hard bed, where ice sheet surface slope is a major control on triggering subglacial lake discharge. Recent evidence also points to the development of channels in deformable sediment in West Antarctica, with significant water exchanges between till and ice. Most active lakes drain over short time scales and respond rapidly to upstream variations. Several Antarctic subglacial lakes exhibit complex interactions with the ice sheet due to water circulation. Subglacial lakes can therefore-from a modelling point of view-be seen as confined small oceans underneath an imbedded ice shelf. © 2015 The Author(s).

Circumpolar patterns of ground-fast lake ice and landscape development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bartsch, Annett; Pointner, Georg; Leibmann, Marina; Dvornikov, Yuri; Khomutov, Artem

2017-04-01

Shallow lakes in the Arctic are often associated with thermokarst processes which are characteristic for permafrost environments. They partially or completely freeze-up during winter time what can be observed from space using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Spatial patterns of ground-fast and floating ice relate to geomorphological and hydrological processes, but no circumpolar account of this phenomenon is currently available due to challenges when dealing with the varying observation geometry typical for SAR. An approach using ENVISAT ASAR Wide Swath data (approximately 120 m resolution) has been developed supported by bathymetric measurements in Siberia and eventually applied across the entire Arctic for late winter 2008. In total about 2 Million lake objects have been analyzed considering the boundaries of the Last Glacial Maximum, permafrost zones and soil organic carbon content. Distinct patterns of ground-fast lake ice fraction can be found across the Arctic. Clusters of variable fractions of ground-fast ice occur especially in Yedoma regions of Eastern Siberia and Alaska. This reflects the nature of thaw lake dynamics. Analyses of lake depth measurements from several sites (Alaskan North Slope, Richards Island in Canada, Yamal Peninsula and Lena Delta) suggest that the used method yields the potential to utilize ground-fast lake ice information over larger areas with respect to landscape development, but results need to be treated with care, specifically for larger lakes and along river courses. A combination of general lake features and ground-fast ice fraction may lead to an advanced understanding of landscape patterns and development. Ground-fast ice fraction information may support to some extent the identification of landscape units, for example areas of adjacent lakes with similar patterns (terraces) or areas with mixed ground-fast fractions which indicate different lake development stages. This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund

Sea-ice thickness from field measurements in the northwestern Barents Sea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, Jennifer; Spreen, Gunnar; Gerland, Sebastian; Haas, Christian; Hendricks, Stefan; Kaleschke, Lars; Wang, Caixin

2017-02-01

The Barents Sea is one of the fastest changing regions of the Arctic, and has experienced the strongest decline in winter-time sea-ice area in the Arctic, at -23±4% decade-1. Sea-ice thickness in the Barents Sea is not well studied. We present two previously unpublished helicopter-borne electromagnetic (HEM) ice thickness measurements from the northwestern Barents Sea acquired in March 2003 and 2014. The HEM data are compared to ice thickness calculated from ice draft measured by ULS deployed between 1994 and 1996. These data show that ice thickness varies greatly from year to year; influenced by the thermodynamic and dynamic processes that govern local formation vs long-range advection. In a year with a large inflow of sea-ice from the Arctic Basin, the Barents Sea ice cover is dominated by thick multiyear ice; as was the case in 2003 and 1995. In a year with an ice cover that was mainly grown in situ, the ice will be thin and mechanically unstable; as was the case in 2014. The HEM data allow us to explore the spatial and temporal variability in ice thickness. In 2003 the dominant ice class was more than 2 years old; and modal sea-ice thickness varied regionally from 0.6 to 1.4 m, with the thinner ice being either first-year ice, or multiyear ice which had come into contact with warm Atlantic water. In 2014 the ice cover was predominantly locally grown ice less than 1 month old (regional modes of 0.5-0.8 m). These two situations represent two extremes of a range of possible ice thickness distributions that can present very different conditions for shipping traffic; or have a different impact on heat transport from ocean to atmosphere.

Lake Generated Microseisms at Yellowstone Lake as a Record of Ice Phenology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mohd Mokhdhari, A. A.; Koper, K. D.; Burlacu, R.

2017-12-01

It has recently been shown that wave action in lakes produces microseisms, which generate noise peaks in the period range of 0.8-1.2 s as recorded by nearby seismic stations. Such noise peaks have been observed at seven seismic stations (H17A, LKWY, B208, B944, YTP, YLA, and YLT) located within 2 km of the Yellowstone Lake shoreline. Initial work using 2016 data shows that the variations in the microseism signals at Yellowstone Lake correspond with the freezing and thawing of lake ice: the seismic noise occurs more frequently in the spring, summer, and fall, and less commonly in the winter. If this can be confirmed, then lake-generated microseisms could provide a consistent measure of the freezing and melting dates of high-latitude lakes in remote areas. The seismic data would then be useful in assessing the effects of climate change on the ice phenology of those lakes. In this work, we analyze continuous seismic data recorded by the seven seismic stations around Yellowstone Lake for the years of 1995 to 2016. We generate probability distribution functions of power spectral density for each station to observe the broad elevation of energy near a period of 1 s. The time dependence of this 1-s seismic noise energy is analyzed by extracting the power spectral density at 1 s from every processed hour. The seismic observations are compared to direct measurements of the dates of ice-out and freeze-up as reported by rangers at Yellowstone National Park. We examine how accurate the seismic data are in recording the freezing and melting of Yellowstone Lake, and how the accuracy changes as a function of the number of stations used. We also examine how sensitive the results are to the particular range of periods that are analyzed.

Composition and biodegradation of a synthetic oil spilled on the perennial ice cover of Lake Fryxell, Antarctica.

PubMed

Jaraula, Caroline M B; Kenig, Fabien; Doran, Peter T; Priscu, John C; Welch, Kathleen A

2009-04-15

A helicopter crashed in January 2003 on the 5 m-thick perennial ice cover of Lake Fryxell, spilling synthetic turbine oil Aeroshell 500. Molecular compositions of the oils were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and compared to the composition of contaminants in ice, meltwater, and sediments collected a year after the accident. Aeroshell 500 is based on C20-C33 Pentaerythritol triesters (PET) with C5-C10 fatty acids susbstituents and contain a number of antioxidant additives, such as tricresyl phosphates. Biodegradation of this oil in the ice cover occurs when sediments are present PETs with short fatty acids substituents are preferentially degraded, whereas long chain fatty acids seem to hinder esters from hydrolysis by esterase derived from the microbial assemblage. It remains to be seen if the microbial ecosystem can degrade tricresyl phosphates. These more recalcitrant PET species and tricresyl phosphates are likely to persist and comprise the contaminants that may eventually cross the ice cover to reach the pristine lake water.

Backscatter from ice growing on shallow tundra lakes near Barrow, Alaska, winter 1991-1992

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jeffries, M. O.; Wakabayashi, H.; Weeks, W. F.; Morris, K.

1993-01-01

The timing of freeze-up and break-up of Arctic lake ice is a potentially useful environmental indicator that could be monitored using SAR. In order to do this, it is important to understand how the properties and structure of the ice during its growth and decay affect radar backscatter and thus lake ice SAR signatures. The availability of radiometrically and geometrically calibrated digital SAR data time series from the Alaska SAR Facility has made it possible for the first time to quantify lake ice backscatter intensity (sigma(sup o)) variations. This has been done for ice growing on shallow tundra lakes near Barrow, NW Alaska, from initial growth in September 1991 until thawing and decay in June 1992. Field and laboratory observations and measurements of the lake ice were made in late April 1992. The field investigations of the coastal lakes near Barrow confirmed previous findings that, (1) ice frozen to the lake bottom had a dark signature in SAR images, indicating weak backscatter, while, (2) ice that was floating had a bright signature, indicating strong backscatter. At all sites, regardless of whether the ice was grounded or floating, there was a layer of clear, inclusion-free ice overlaying a layer of ice with dense concentrations of vertically oriented tubular bubbles. At some sites, there was a third layer of porous, snow-ice overlaying the clear ice.

Antarctic Sea-Ice Freeboard and Estimated Thickness from NASA's ICESat and IceBridge Observations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yi, Donghui; Kurtz, Nathan; Harbeck, Jeremy; Manizade, Serdar; Hofton, Michelle; Cornejo, Helen G.; Zwally, H. Jay; Robbins, John

2016-01-01

ICESat completed 18 observational campaigns during its lifetime from 2003 to 2009. Data from all of the 18 campaign periods are used in this study. Most of the operational periods were between 34 and 38 days long. Because of laser failure and orbit transition from 8-day to 91-day orbit, there were four periods lasting 57, 16, 23, and 12 days. IceBridge data from 2009, 2010, and 2011 are used in this study. Since 2009, there are 19 Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) campaigns, and eight Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS) campaigns over the Antarctic sea ice. Freeboard heights are derived from ICESat, ATM and LVIS elevation and waveform data. With nominal densities of snow, water, and sea ice, combined with snow depth data from AMSR-E/AMSR2 passive microwave observation over the southern ocean, sea-ice thickness is derived from the freeboard. Combined with AMSR-E/AMSR2 ice concentration, sea-ice area and volume are also calculated. During the 2003-2009 period, sea-ice freeboard and thickness distributions show clear seasonal variations that reflect the yearly cycle of the growth and decay of the Antarctic pack ice. We found no significant trend of thickness or area for the Antarctic sea ice during the ICESat period. IceBridge sea ice freeboard and thickness data from 2009 to 2011 over the Weddell Sea and Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas are compared with the ICESat results.

Modes of supraglacial lake drainage and dynamic ice sheet response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Das, S. B.; Behn, M. D.; Joughin, I. R.

2011-12-01

We investigate modes of supraglacial lake drainage using geophysical, ground, and remote sensing observations over the western margin of the Greenland ice sheet. Lakes exhibit a characteristic life cycle defined by a pre-drainage, drainage, and post-drainage phase. In the pre-drainage phase winter snow fills pre-existing cracks and stream channels, efficiently blocking past drainage conduits. As temperatures increase in the spring, surface melting commences, initially saturating the snow pack and subsequently forming a surface network of streams that fills the lake basins. Basins continue to fill until lake drainage commences, which for individual lakes occurs at different times depending on the previous winter snow accumulation and summer temperatures. Three styles of drainage behavior have been observed: (1) no drainage, (2) slow drainage over the side into an adjacent pre-existing crack, and (3) rapid drainage through a new crack formed beneath the lake basin. Moreover, from year-to-year individual lakes exhibit different drainage behaviors. Lakes that drain slowly often utilize the same outflow channel for multiple years, creating dramatic canyons in the ice. Ultimately, these surface channels are advected out of the lake basin and a new channel forms. In the post-drainage phase, melt water continues to access the bed typically through a small conduit (e.g. moulin) formed near a local topographic minimum along the main drainage crack, draining the lake catchment throughout the remainder of the melt season. This melt water input to the bed leads to continued basal lubrication and enhanced ice flow compared to background velocities. Lakes that do not completely drain freeze over to form a surface ice layer that persists into the following year. Our results show that supraglacial lakes show a spectrum of drainage behaviors and that these styles of drainage lead to varying rates and timing of surface meltwater delivery to the bed resulting in different dynamic ice

Airborne Polarimetric, Two-Color Laser Altimeter Measurements of Lake Ice Cover: A Pathfinder for NASA's ICESat-2 Spaceflight Mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Harding, David; Dabney, Philip; Valett, Susan; Yu, Anthony; Vasilyev, Aleksey; Kelly, April

2011-01-01

The ICESat-2 mission will continue NASA's spaceflight laser altimeter measurements of ice sheets, sea ice and vegetation using a new measurement approach: micropulse, single photon ranging at 532 nm. Differential penetration of green laser energy into snow, ice and water could introduce errors in sea ice freeboard determination used for estimation of ice thickness. Laser pulse scattering from these surface types, and resulting range biasing due to pulse broadening, is assessed using SIMPL airborne data acquired over icecovered Lake Erie. SIMPL acquires polarimetric lidar measurements at 1064 and 532 nm using the micropulse, single photon ranging measurement approach.

Microbiological and Biogeochemical Investigations of the Accreted Ice Above Subglacial Lake Vostok, Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Christner, B. C.; Foreman, C. F.; Arnold, B. R.; Welch, K. A.; Lyons, W. B.; Priscu, J. C.

2004-12-01

Subglacial Lake Vostok is located ~4 km beneath the surface of the East Antarctic ice sheet and has been isolated from the atmosphere for at least 15 million years. The lake has a surface area near 14,000 km2 and a depth exceeding 1000 m. While the nature of the environment within Subglacial Lake Vostok remains uncertain, if a sustained microbial ecosystem is present, life in this subsurface environment operates under arguably the most extreme conditions in the biosphere (i.e., high pressure, constant cold, high oxygen concentrations, and no light). The lake represents an analogue for ecosystems that may exist in Europa's ice-covered ocean and also provides an Earthly-based model for the evaluation of technology to search for life in icy extraterrestrial subsurface environments. Concerns for environmental protection have prevented direct sampling of the lake water thus far, as a prudent sampling plan that will not contaminate this pristine environment has yet to be developed and tested. However, an ice core has been retrieved at Vostok Station in which the bottom ~85 meters consists of lake water that has accreted to the bottom of the ice sheet, providing frozen samples of water from the lakes' surface. The ice from 3539 to 3609 mbs (accretion ice I) contains visible inclusions due to accretion in the shallow embayment or western grounding line, whereas ice from 3610-3623 mbs (accretion ice II) is very clean, forming above the deep eastern basin of the main lake. Using a multifaceted protocol to monitor cellular and molecular decontamination of ice cores, we show that the microbiology and geochemistry (i.e., dissolve organic carbon, nutrients, and ions) of accretion ice is very different from the overlying glacial ice. The numbers of cells are 2- to 7-fold higher in accretion ice I than in the overlying glacial ice, and decrease with increasing depth in accretion ice II. Cell viability in accretion ice samples has been confirmed by the measurable respiration of 14C

Shifting balance of thermokarst lake ice regimes across the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska

USGS Publications Warehouse

Arp, Christopher D.; Jones, Benjamin M.; Lu, Zong; Whitman, Matthew S.

2012-01-01

The balance of thermokarst lakes with bedfast- and floating-ice regimes across Arctic lowlands regulates heat storage, permafrost thaw, winter-water supply, and over-wintering aquatic habitat. Using a time-series of late-winter synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to distinguish lake ice regimes in two regions of the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska from 2003–2011, we found that 18% of the lakes had intermittent ice regimes, varying between bedfast-ice and floating-ice conditions. Comparing this dataset with a radar-based lake classification from 1980 showed that 16% of the bedfast-ice lakes had shifted to floating-ice regimes. A simulated lake ice thinning trend of 1.5 cm/yr since 1978 is believed to be the primary factor driving this form of lake change. The most profound impacts of this regime shift in Arctic lakes may be an increase in the landscape-scale thermal offset created by additional lake heat storage and its role in talik development in otherwise continuous permafrost as well as increases in over-winter aquatic habitat and winter-water supply.

Microbial life under ice: Metagenome diversity and in situ activity of Verrucomicrobia in seasonally ice-covered lakes.

PubMed

Tran, Patricia; Ramachandran, Arthi; Khawasek, Ola; Beisner, Beatrix E; Rautio, Milla; Huot, Yannick; Walsh, David A

2018-06-19

Northern lakes are ice-covered for a large part of the year, yet our understanding of microbial diversity and activity during winter lags behind that of the ice-free period. In this study, we investigated under-ice diversity and metabolism of Verrucomicrobia in seasonally ice-covered lakes in temperate and boreal regions of Quebec, Canada using 16S rRNA sequencing, metagenomics and metatranscriptomics. Verrucomicrobia, particularly the V1, V3 and V4 subdivisions, were abundant during ice-covered periods. A diversity of Verrucomicrobia genomes were reconstructed from Quebec lake metagenomes. Several genomes were associated with the ice-covered period and were represented in winter metatranscriptomes, supporting the notion that Verrucomicrobia are metabolically active under ice. Verrucomicrobia transcriptome analysis revealed a range of metabolisms potentially occurring under ice, including carbohydrate degradation, glycolate utilization, scavenging of chlorophyll degradation products, and urea use. Genes for aerobic sulfur and hydrogen oxidation were expressed, suggesting chemolithotrophy may be an adaptation to conditions where labile carbon may be limited. The expression of genes for flagella biosynthesis and chemotaxis was detected, suggesting Verrucomicrobia may be actively sensing and responding to winter nutrient pulses, such as phytoplankton blooms. These results increase our understanding on the diversity and metabolic processes occurring under ice in northern lakes ecosystems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. © 2018 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

An Examination of the Sea Ice Rheology for Seasonal Ice Zones Based on Ice Drift and Thickness Observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toyota, Takenobu; Kimura, Noriaki

2018-02-01

The validity of the sea ice rheological model formulated by Hibler (1979), which is widely used in present numerical sea ice models, is examined for the Sea of Okhotsk as an example of the seasonal ice zone (SIZ), based on satellite-derived sea ice velocity, concentration and thickness. Our focus was the formulation of the yield curve, the shape of which can be estimated from ice drift pattern based on the energy equation of deformation, while the strength of the ice cover that determines its magnitude was evaluated using ice concentration and thickness data. Ice drift was obtained with a grid spacing of 37.5 km from the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature using a maximum cross-correlation method. The ice thickness was obtained with a spatial resolution of 100 m from a regression of the PALSAR backscatter coefficients with ice thickness. To assess scale dependence, the ice drift data derived from a coastal radar covering a 70 km range in the southernmost Sea of Okhotsk were similarly analyzed. The results obtained were mostly consistent with Hibler's formulation that was based on the Arctic Ocean on both scales with no dependence on a time scale, and justify the treatment of sea ice as a plastic material, with an elliptical shaped yield curve to some extent. However, it also highlights the difficulty in parameterizing sub-grid scale ridging in the model because grid scale ice velocities reduce the deformation magnitude by half due to the large variation of the deformation field in the SIZ.

Discovery of a hypersaline subglacial lake complex beneath Devon Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic

PubMed Central

Blankenship, Donald D.; Schroeder, Dustin M.; Dowdeswell, Julian A.

2018-01-01

Subglacial lakes are unique environments that, despite the extreme dark and cold conditions, have been shown to host microbial life. Many subglacial lakes have been discovered beneath the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, but no spatially isolated water body has been documented as hypersaline. We use radio-echo sounding measurements to identify two subglacial lakes situated in bedrock troughs near the ice divide of Devon Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic. Modeled basal ice temperatures in the lake area are no higher than −10.5°C, suggesting that these lakes consist of hypersaline water. This implication of hypersalinity is in agreement with the surrounding geology, which indicates that the subglacial lakes are situated within an evaporite-rich sediment unit containing a bedded salt sequence, which likely act as the solute source for the brine. Our results reveal the first evidence for subglacial lakes in the Canadian Arctic and the first hypersaline subglacial lakes reported to date. We conclude that these previously unknown hypersaline subglacial lakes may represent significant and largely isolated microbial habitats, and are compelling analogs for potential ice-covered brine lakes and lenses on planetary bodies across the solar system. PMID:29651462

Sea ice thickness derived from radar altimetry: achievements and future plans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ricker, R.; Hendricks, S.; Paul, S.; Kaleschke, L.; Tian-Kunze, X.

2017-12-01

The retrieval of Arctic sea ice thickness is one of the major objectives of the European CryoSat-2 radar altimeter mission and the 7-year long period of operation has produced an unprecedented record of monthly sea ice thickness information. We present CryoSat-2 results that show changes and variability of Arctic sea ice from the winter season 2010/2011 until fall 2017. CryoSat-2, however, was designed to observe thick perennial sea ice, while an accurate retrieval of thin seasonal sea ice is more challenging. We have therefore developed a method of completing and improving Arctic sea ice thickness information within the ESA SMOS+ Sea Ice project by merging CryoSat-2 and SMOS sea ice thickness retrievals. Using these satellite missions together overcomes several issues of single-mission retrievals and provides a more accurate and comprehensive view on the state of Arctic sea-ice thickness at higher temporal resolution. However, stand-alone CryoSat-2 observations can be used as reference data for the exploitation of older pulse-limited radar altimetry data sets over sea ice. In order to observe trends in sea ice thickness, it is required to minimize inter-mission biases between subsequent satellite missions. Within the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) on Sea Ice, a climate data record of sea ice thickness derived from satellite radar altimetry has been developed for both hemispheres, based on the 15-year (2002-2017) monthly retrievals from Envisat and CryoSat-2 and calibrated in the 2010-2012 overlap period. The next step in promoting the utilization of sea ice thickness information from radar altimetry is to provide products by a service that meets the requirements for climate applications and operational systems. This task will be pursued within a Copernicus Climate Change Service project (C3S). This framework also aims to include additional sensors such as onboard Sentinel-3 and we will show first results of Sentinel-3 Arctic sea-ice thickness. These

Influence of ice thickness and surface properties on light transmission through Arctic sea ice.

PubMed

Katlein, Christian; Arndt, Stefanie; Nicolaus, Marcel; Perovich, Donald K; Jakuba, Michael V; Suman, Stefano; Elliott, Stephen; Whitcomb, Louis L; McFarland, Christopher J; Gerdes, Rüdiger; Boetius, Antje; German, Christopher R

2015-09-01

The observed changes in physical properties of sea ice such as decreased thickness and increased melt pond cover severely impact the energy budget of Arctic sea ice. Increased light transmission leads to increased deposition of solar energy in the upper ocean and thus plays a crucial role for amount and timing of sea-ice-melt and under-ice primary production. Recent developments in underwater technology provide new opportunities to study light transmission below the largely inaccessible underside of sea ice. We measured spectral under-ice radiance and irradiance using the new Nereid Under-Ice (NUI) underwater robotic vehicle, during a cruise of the R/V Polarstern to 83°N 6°W in the Arctic Ocean in July 2014. NUI is a next generation hybrid remotely operated vehicle (H-ROV) designed for both remotely piloted and autonomous surveys underneath land-fast and moving sea ice. Here we present results from one of the first comprehensive scientific dives of NUI employing its interdisciplinary sensor suite. We combine under-ice optical measurements with three dimensional under-ice topography (multibeam sonar) and aerial images of the surface conditions. We investigate the influence of spatially varying ice-thickness and surface properties on the spatial variability of light transmittance during summer. Our results show that surface properties such as melt ponds dominate the spatial distribution of the under-ice light field on small scales (<1000 m 2 ), while sea ice-thickness is the most important predictor for light transmission on larger scales. In addition, we propose the use of an algorithm to obtain histograms of light transmission from distributions of sea ice thickness and surface albedo.

Sea Ice Mass Reconciliation Exercise (SIMRE) for altimetry derived sea ice thickness data sets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hendricks, S.; Haas, C.; Tsamados, M.; Kwok, R.; Kurtz, N. T.; Rinne, E. J.; Uotila, P.; Stroeve, J.

2017-12-01

Satellite altimetry is the primary remote sensing data source for retrieval of Arctic sea-ice thickness. Observational data sets are available from current and previous missions, namely ESA's Envisat and CryoSat as well as NASA ICESat. In addition, freeboard results have been published from the earlier ESA ERS missions and candidates for new data products are the Sentinel-3 constellation, the CNES AltiKa mission and NASA laser altimeter successor ICESat-2. With all the different aspects of sensor type and orbit configuration, all missions have unique properties. In addition, thickness retrieval algorithms have evolved over time and data centers have developed different strategies. These strategies may vary in choice of auxiliary data sets, algorithm parts and product resolution and masking. The Sea Ice Mass Reconciliation Exercise (SIMRE) is a project by the sea-ice radar altimetry community to bridge the challenges of comparing data sets across missions and algorithms. The ESA Arctic+ research program facilitates this project with the objective to collect existing data sets and to derive a reconciled estimate of Arctic sea ice mass balance. Starting with CryoSat-2 products, we compare results from different data centers (UCL, AWI, NASA JPL & NASA GSFC) at full resolution along selected orbits with independent ice thickness estimates. Three regions representative of first-year ice, multiyear ice and mixed ice conditions are used to compare the difference in thickness and thickness change between products over the seasonal cycle. We present first results and provide an outline for the further development of SIMRE activities. The methodology for comparing data sets is designed to be extendible and the project is open to contributions by interested groups. Model results of sea ice thickness will be added in a later phase of the project to extend the scope of SIMRE beyond EO products.

Helium and Neon in the Accreted Ice of the Subglacial Antarctic Lake Vostok

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jean-Baptiste, P.; Fourré, E.; Petit, J. R.; Lipenkov, V.; Bulat, S.; Chetverikov, Y.; Raynaud, D.

2018-05-01

We analyzed helium and neon in 24 samples from between 3,607 and 3,767 m (i.e., down to 2 m above the lake-ice interface) of the accreted ice frozen to the ceiling of Lake Vostok. Within uncertainties, the neon budget of the lake is balanced, the neon supplied to the lake by the melting of glacier ice being compensated by the neon exported by lake ice. The helium concentration in the lake is about 12 times more than in the glacier ice, with a measured 3He/4He ratio of 0.12 ± 0.01 Ra. This shows that Lake Vostok's waters are enriched by a terrigenic helium source. The 3He/4He isotope ratio of this helium source was determined. Its radiogenic value (0.057 × Ra) is typical of an old continental province, ruling out any magmatic activity associated with the tectonic structure of the lake. It corresponds to a low geothermal heat flow estimated at 51 mW/m2.

Potential subglacial lake locations and meltwater drainage pathways beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Livingstone, S. J.; Clark, C. D.; Woodward, J.; Kingslake, J.

2013-11-01

We use the Shreve hydraulic potential equation as a simplified approach to investigate potential subglacial lake locations and meltwater drainage pathways beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. We validate the method by demonstrating its ability to recall the locations of >60% of the known subglacial lakes beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. This is despite uncertainty in the ice-sheet bed elevation and our simplified modelling approach. However, we predict many more lakes than are observed. Hence we suggest that thousands of subglacial lakes remain to be found. Applying our technique to the Greenland Ice Sheet, where very few subglacial lakes have so far been observed, recalls 1607 potential lake locations, covering 1.2% of the bed. Our results will therefore provide suitable targets for geophysical surveys aimed at identifying lakes beneath Greenland. We also apply the technique to modelled past ice-sheet configurations and find that during deglaciation both ice sheets likely had more subglacial lakes at their beds. These lakes, inherited from past ice-sheet configurations, would not form under current surface conditions, but are able to persist, suggesting a retreating ice-sheet will have many more subglacial lakes than advancing ones. We also investigate subglacial drainage pathways of the present-day and former Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Key sectors of the ice sheets, such as the Siple Coast (Antarctica) and NE Greenland Ice Stream system, are suggested to have been susceptible to subglacial drainage switching. We discuss how our results impact our understanding of meltwater drainage, basal lubrication and ice-stream formation.

Antarctic ice shelf thickness from CryoSat-2 radar altimetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chuter, Stephen; Bamber, Jonathan

2016-04-01

The Antarctic ice shelves provide buttressing to the inland grounded ice sheet, and therefore play a controlling role in regulating ice dynamics and mass imbalance. Accurate knowledge of ice shelf thickness is essential for input-output method mass balance calculations, sub-ice shelf ocean models and buttressing parameterisations in ice sheet models. Ice shelf thickness has previously been inferred from satellite altimetry elevation measurements using the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium, as direct measurements of ice thickness do not provide the spatial coverage necessary for these applications. The sensor limitations of previous radar altimeters have led to poor data coverage and a lack of accuracy, particularly the grounding zone where a break in slope exists. We present a new ice shelf thickness dataset using four years (2011-2014) of CryoSat-2 elevation measurements, with its SARIn dual antennae mode of operation alleviating the issues affecting previous sensors. These improvements and the dense across track spacing of the satellite has resulted in ˜92% coverage of the ice shelves, with substantial improvements, for example, of over 50% across the Venable and Totten Ice Shelves in comparison to the previous dataset. Significant improvements in coverage and accuracy are also seen south of 81.5° for the Ross and Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelves. Validation of the surface elevation measurements, used to derive ice thickness, against NASA ICESat laser altimetry data shows a mean bias of less than 1 m (equivalent to less than 9 m in ice thickness) and a fourfold decrease in standard deviation in comparison to the previous continental dataset. Importantly, the most substantial improvements are found in the grounding zone. Validation of the derived thickness data has been carried out using multiple Radio Echo Sounding (RES) campaigns across the continent. Over the Amery ice shelf, where extensive RES measurements exist, the mean difference between the datasets is 3

Climate regulates alpine lake ice cover phenology and aquatic ecosystem structure

USGS Publications Warehouse

Preston, Daniel L.; Caine, Nel; McKnight, Diane M.; Williams, Mark W.; Hell, Katherina; Miller, Matthew P.; Hart, Sarah J.; Johnson, Pieter T.J.

2016-01-01

High-elevation aquatic ecosystems are highly vulnerable to climate change, yet relatively few records are available to characterize shifts in ecosystem structure or their underlying mechanisms. Using a long-term dataset on seven alpine lakes (3126 to 3620 m) in Colorado, USA, we show that ice-off dates have shifted seven days earlier over the past 33 years and that spring weather conditions – especially snowfall – drive yearly variation in ice-off timing. In the most well-studied lake, earlier ice-off associated with increases in water residence times, thermal stratification, ion concentrations, dissolved nitrogen, pH, and chlorophyll-a. Mechanistically, low spring snowfall and warm temperatures reduce summer stream flow (increasing lake residence times) but enhance melting of glacial and permafrost ice (increasing lake solute inputs). The observed links among hydrological, chemical, and biological responses to climate factors highlight the potential for major shifts in the functioning of alpine lakes due to forecasted climate change.

Antarctic Sea Ice Thickness and Snow-to-Ice Conversion from Atmospheric Reanalysis and Passive Microwave Snow Depth

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Markus, Thorsten; Maksym, Ted

2007-01-01

Passive microwave snow depth, ice concentration, and ice motion estimates are combined with snowfall from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) reanalysis (ERA-40) from 1979-200 1 to estimate the prevalence of snow-to-ice conversion (snow-ice formation) on level sea ice in the Antarctic for April-October. Snow ice is ubiquitous in all regions throughout the growth season. Calculated snow- ice thicknesses fall within the range of estimates from ice core analysis for most regions. However, uncertainties in both this analysis and in situ data limit the usefulness of snow depth and snow-ice production to evaluate the accuracy of ERA-40 snowfall. The East Antarctic is an exception, where calculated snow-ice production exceeds observed ice thickness over wide areas, suggesting that ERA-40 precipitation is too high there. Snow-ice thickness variability is strongly controlled not just by snow accumulation rates, but also by ice divergence. Surprisingly, snow-ice production is largely independent of snow depth, indicating that the latter may be a poor indicator of total snow accumulation. Using the presence of snow-ice formation as a proxy indicator for near-zero freeboard, we examine the possibility of estimating level ice thickness from satellite snow depths. A best estimate for the mean level ice thickness in September is 53 cm, comparing well with 51 cm from ship-based observations. The error is estimated to be 10-20 cm, which is similar to the observed interannual and regional variability. Nevertheless, this is comparable to expected errors for ice thickness determined by satellite altimeters. Improvement in satellite snow depth retrievals would benefit both of these methods.

Hellas as a Possible Site of Ancient Ice-Covered Lakes on Mars

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moore, Jeffrey M.; Wilhelms, Don E.; DeVincenzi, Donald (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Based on topographic, morphologic, and stratigraphic evidence, we propose that ancient water-laid sediment is the dominant component of deposits within Hellas Planitia, Mars. Multiply layered sediment is manifested by alternating benches and scarps visible in Mars Orbiting Camera narrow-angle (MOC NA) images. Viking Orbiter camera and MOC NA images were used to map contacts and stratigraphically order the different materials units within Hellas. Mar's Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data reveal that the contacts of these sedimentary units, as well as a number of scarps or other abrupt changes in landscape texture, trace contours of constant elevation for thousands of km, and in one case all around the basin. Channels, consensually interpreted to be cut by water, lead into the basin. MOLA results indicate that the area encompassed by greater Hellas' highest closed contour is nearly one-fifth that of the entire northern plains, making the Hellas 'drainage' area much larger than previously reported. If lakes formed under climatic conditions similar to the modern Martian climate, they would develop thick ice carapaces, then the lakes would eventually sublimate away. Two units within Hellas exhibit a reticulate or honeycomb pattern we speculate are impressions made by lake-lowered ice blocks grounding into initially soft mud.

Hellas as a possible site of ancient ice-covered lakes on Mars

USGS Publications Warehouse

Moore, Johnnie N.; Wilhelms, D.E.

2001-01-01

Based on topographic, morphologic, and stratigraphic evidence, we propose that ancient water-laid sediment is the dominant component of deposits within Hellas Planitia, Mars. Multiple-layered sediment is manifested by alternating benches and scarps visible in Mars orbiting camera narrow-angle (MOC NA) images. Viking Orbiter camera and MOC NA images were used to map contacts and stratigraphically order the different materials units within Hellas. Mars orbiting laser altimeter (MOLA) data reveal that the contacts of these sedimentary units, as well as a number of scarps or other abrupt changes in landscape texture, trace contours of constant elevation for thousands of km, and in one case all around the basin. Channels, consensually interpreted to be cut by water, lead into the basin. MOLA results indicate that the area encompassed by greater Hellas' highest closed contour is nearly one-fifth that of the entire northern plains, making the Hellas "drainage" area much larger than previously reported. If lakes formed under climatic conditions similar to the modern Martian climate, they would develop thick ice carapaces, then the lakes would eventually sublimate away. Two units within Hellas exhibit a reticulate or honeycomb pattern, which we speculate are impressions made by lake-lowered ice blocks grounding into initially soft mud.

Ice Thickness, Melting Rates and Styles of Activity in Ice-Volcano Interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gudmundsson, M. T.

2005-12-01

In most cases when eruptions occur within glaciers they lead to rapid ice melting, jokulhlaups and/or lahars. Many parameters influence the style of activity and its impact on the environment. These include ice thickness (size of glacier), bedrock geometry, magma flow rate and magma composition. The eruptions that have been observed can roughly be divided into: (1) eruptions under several hundred meters thick ice on a relatively flat bedrock, (2) eruptions on flat or sloping bed through relatively thin ice, and (3) volcanism where effects are limitied to confinement of lava flows or melting of ice by pyroclastic flows or surges. This last category (ice-contact volcanism) need not cause much ice melting. Many of the deposits formed by Pleistocene volcanism in Iceland, British Columbia and Antarctica belong to the first category. An important difference between this type of activity and submarine activity (where pressure is hydrostatic) is that pressure at vents may in many cases be much lower than glaciostatic due to partial support of ice cover over vents by the surrounding glacier. Reduced pressure favours explosive activity. Thus the effusive/explosive transition may occur several hundred metres underneath the ice surface. Explosive fragmentation of magma leads to much higher rates of heat transfer than does effusive eruption of pillow lavas, and hence much higher melting rates. This effect of reduced pressure at vents will be less pronounced in a large ice sheet than in a smaller glacier or ice cap, since the hydraulic gradient that drives water away from an eruption site will be lower in the large glacier. This may have implications for form and type of eruption deposits and their relationship with ice thickness and glacier size.

Evidence of deep circulation in two perennially ice-covered Antarctic lakes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Tyler, S.W.; Cook, P.G.; Butt, A.Z.; Thomas, J.M.; Doran, P.T.; Lyons, W.B.

1998-01-01

The perennial ice covers found on many of the lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valley region of the Antarctic have been postulated to severely limit mixing and convective turnover of these unique lakes. In this work, we utilize chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) concentration profiles from Lakes Hoare and Fryxell in the McMurdo Dry Valley to determine the extent of deep vertical mixing occurring over the last 50 years. Near the ice-water interface, CFC concentrations in both lakes were well above saturation, in accordance with atmospheric gas supersaturations resulting from freezing under the perennial ice covers. Evidence of mixing throughout the water column at Lake Hoare was confirmed by the presence of CFCs throughout the water column and suggests vertical mixing times of 20-30 years. In Lake Fryxell, CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-113 were found in the upper water column; however, degradation of CFC-11 and CFC-12 in the anoxic bottom waters appears to be occurring with CFC-113 only present in these bottom waters. The presence of CFC-113 in the bottom waters, in conjunction with previous work detecting tritium in these waters, strongly argues for the presence of convective mixing in Lake Fryxell. The evidence for deep mixing in these lakes may be an important, yet overlooked, phenomenon in the limnology of perennially ice-covered lakes.

Mining Existing Radar Altimetry for Sea Ice Freeboard and Thickness Estimates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Childers, V. A.; Brozena, J. M.

2007-12-01

Although satellites can easily monitor ice extent and a variety of ice attributes, they cannot directly measure ice thickness. As a result, very few ice thickness measurements exist to constrain models of Arctic climate change. We estimated sea ice freeboard and thickness from X-band radar altimeter measurements collected over seven field seasons between 1992 and 1999 as part of a Naval Research Lab (NRL)-sponsored airborne geophysical survey of gravity and magnetics over the Arctic Ocean. These freeboard and thickness estimates were compared with the SCICEX ice draft record and the observed thinning of the Arctic Ocean ice cover during the 1990's. Our initial calculations (shown here) suggest that retrieved profiles from this radar altimeter (with uncertainty of about 5 cm) are sensitive to openings in the ice cover. Thus, conversion of these profiles to ice thickness adds an invaluable dataset for assessment of recent and future changes of Arctic climate. And, snow loading is a minor issue here as all the airborne surveys were conducted during mid- to late-summer when the ice cover is mostly bare. The strengths of this dataset are its small antenna footprint of ~50 m and density of spatial coverage allows for detailed characterization of the field of ice thickness, and it provides surveys of regions not covered by SCICEX cruises. The entire survey covers more than half the Arctic Ocean. We find that the Canadian Basin sea ice behavior differs from that in the Eurasian Basin and ultimately affects mean sea ice thickness for each basin.

Sea Ice Thickness, Freeboard, and Snow Depth products from Operation IceBridge Airborne Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kurtz, N. T.; Farrell, S. L.; Studinger, M.; Galin, N.; Harbeck, J. P.; Lindsay, R.; Onana, V. D.; Panzer, B.; Sonntag, J. G.

2013-01-01

The study of sea ice using airborne remote sensing platforms provides unique capabilities to measure a wide variety of sea ice properties. These measurements are useful for a variety of topics including model evaluation and improvement, assessment of satellite retrievals, and incorporation into climate data records for analysis of interannual variability and long-term trends in sea ice properties. In this paper we describe methods for the retrieval of sea ice thickness, freeboard, and snow depth using data from a multisensor suite of instruments on NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne campaign. We assess the consistency of the results through comparison with independent data sets that demonstrate that the IceBridge products are capable of providing a reliable record of snow depth and sea ice thickness. We explore the impact of inter-campaign instrument changes and associated algorithm adaptations as well as the applicability of the adapted algorithms to the ongoing IceBridge mission. The uncertainties associated with the retrieval methods are determined and placed in the context of their impact on the retrieved sea ice thickness. Lastly, we present results for the 2009 and 2010 IceBridge campaigns, which are currently available in product form via the National Snow and Ice Data Center

Lake Ice Detection in Low-Resolution Optical Satellite Images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tom, M.; Kälin, U.; Sütterlin, M.; Baltsavias, E.; Schindler, K.

2018-05-01

Monitoring and analyzing the (decreasing) trends in lake freezing provides important information for climate research. Multi-temporal satellite images are a natural data source to survey ice on lakes. In this paper, we describe a method for lake ice monitoring, which uses low spatial resolution (250 m-1000 m) satellite images to determine whether a lake is frozen or not. We report results on four selected lakes in Switzerland: Sihl, Sils, Silvaplana and St. Moritz. These lakes have different properties regarding area, altitude, surrounding topography and freezing frequency, describing cases of medium to high difficulty. Digitized Open Street Map (OSM) lake outlines are back-projected on to the image space after generalization. As a pre-processing step, the absolute geolocation error of the lake outlines is corrected by matching the projected outlines to the images. We define the lake ice detection as a two-class (frozen, non-frozen) semantic segmentation problem. Several spectral channels of the multi-spectral satellite data are used, both reflective and emissive (thermal). Only the cloud-free (clean) pixels which lie completely inside the lake are analyzed. The most useful channels to solve the problem are selected with xgboost and visual analysis of histograms of reference data, while the classification is done with non-linear support vector machine (SVM). We show experimentally that this straight-forward approach works well with both MODIS and VIIRS satellite imagery. Moreover, we show that the algorithm produces consistent results when tested on data from multiple winters.

Timescales of Growth Response of Microbial Mats to Environmental Change in an Ice-Covered Antarctic Lake

PubMed Central

Hawes, Ian; Sumner, Dawn Y.; Andersen, Dale T.; Jungblut, Anne D.; Mackey, Tyler J.

2013-01-01

Lake Vanda is a perennially ice-covered, closed-basin lake in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Laminated photosynthetic microbial mats cover the floor of the lake from below the ice cover to >40 m depth. In recent decades, the water level of Lake Vanda has been rising, creating a “natural experiment” on development of mat communities on newly flooded substrates and the response of deeper mats to declining irradiance. Mats in recently flooded depths accumulate one lamina (~0.3 mm) per year and accrue ~0.18 µg chlorophyll-a cm−2 y−1. As they increase in thickness, vertical zonation becomes evident, with the upper 2-4 laminae forming an orange-brown zone, rich in myxoxanthophyll and dominated by intertwined Leptolyngbya trichomes. Below this, up to six phycobilin-rich green/pink-pigmented laminae form a subsurface zone, inhabited by Leptolyngbya, Oscillatoria and Phormidium morphotypes. Laminae continued to increase in thickness for several years after burial, and PAM fluorometry indicated photosynthetic potential in all pigmented laminae. At depths that have been submerged for >40 years, mats showed similar internal zonation and formed complex pinnacle structures that were only beginning to appear in shallower mats. Chlorophyll-a did not change over time and these mats appear to represent resource-limited “climax” communities. Acclimation of microbial mats to changing environmental conditions is a slow process, and our data show how legacy effects of past change persist into the modern community structure. PMID:24832656

Timescales of growth response of microbial mats to environmental change in an ice-covered antarctic lake.

PubMed

Hawes, Ian; Sumner, Dawn Y; Andersen, Dale T; Jungblut, Anne D; Mackey, Tyler J

2013-01-25

Lake Vanda is a perennially ice-covered, closed-basin lake in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Laminated photosynthetic microbial mats cover the floor of the lake from below the ice cover to >40 m depth. In recent decades, the water level of Lake Vanda has been rising, creating a "natural experiment" on development of mat communities on newly flooded substrates and the response of deeper mats to declining irradiance. Mats in recently flooded depths accumulate one lamina (~0.3 mm) per year and accrue ~0.18 µg chlorophyll-a cm-2 y-1. As they increase in thickness, vertical zonation becomes evident, with the upper 2-4 laminae forming an orange-brown zone, rich in myxoxanthophyll and dominated by intertwined Leptolyngbya trichomes. Below this, up to six phycobilin-rich green/pink-pigmented laminae form a subsurface zone, inhabited by Leptolyngbya, Oscillatoria and Phormidium morphotypes. Laminae continued to increase in thickness for several years after burial, and PAM fluorometry indicated photosynthetic potential in all pigmented laminae. At depths that have been submerged for >40 years, mats showed similar internal zonation and formed complex pinnacle structures that were only beginning to appear in shallower mats. Chlorophyll-a did not change over time and these mats appear to represent resource-limited "climax" communities. Acclimation of microbial mats to changing environmental conditions is a slow process, and our data show how legacy effects of past change persist into the modern community structure.

Evolution of supra-glacial lakes across the Greenland Ice Sheet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sundal, A. V.; Shepherd, A.; Nienow, P.; Hanna, E.; Palmer, S.; Huybrechts, P.

2009-04-01

We have used 268 cloud-free Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images spanning the 2003 and 2005-2007 melt seasons to study the seasonal evolution of supra-glacial lakes in three different regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Lake area estimates were obtained by developing an automated classification method for their identification based on 250 m resolution MODIS surface reflectance observations. Widespread supra-glacial lake formation and drainage is observed across the ice sheet, with a 2-3 weeks delay in the evolution of total supra-glacial lake area in the northern areas compared to the south-west. The onset of lake growth varies by up to one month inter-annually, and lakes form and drain at progressively higher altitudes during the melt season. A correlation was found between the annual peak in total lake area and modelled annual runoff across all study areas. Our results indicate that, in a future warmer climate (Meehl et al., 2007), Greenland supra-glacial lakes can be expected to form at higher altitudes and over a longer time period than is presently the case, expanding the area and time period over which connections between the ice sheet surface and base may be established (Das et al., 2008) with potential consequences for ice sheet discharge (Zwally et al., 2002). Das, S., Joughin, M., Behn, M., Howat, I., King, M., Lizarralde, D., & Bhatia, M. (2008). Fracture propagation to the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet during supra-glacial lake drainage. Science, 5877, 778-781. Meehl, G.A., Stocker, T.F., Collins W.D., Friedlingstein, P., Gaye, A.T., Gregory, J.M., Kitoh, A., Knutti, R., Murphy, J.M., Noda, A., Raper, S.C.B., Watterson, I.G., Weaver, A.J. & Zhao, Z.C. (2007). Global Climate Projections. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor

Lake Stability and Winter-Spring Transitions: Decoupled Ice Duration and Winter Stratification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daly, J.; Dana, S.; Neal, B.

2016-12-01

Ice-out is an important historical record demonstrating the impact of warmer air temperatures on lake ice. To better understand regional differences in ice-out trends, to characterize the thermal dynamics of smaller mountain lakes, and to develop baseline data for Maine's high elevations landscapes, sub-hourly water temperatures have been collected in over a dozen of Maine's mountain lakes since 2010. Both surface water and hypolimnion temperature data are recorded year-round, facilitating the determination of ice-in, ice-out, and the duration of winter stratification. The multi-year record from sites across as 250 km transect allows us to compare spatial variability related to lake morphometry and location with inter-annual variability related to local weather. All of the study lakes are large enough to stratify during the summer and mix extensively during the fall. Most years, our data show that the onset of winter stratification is nearly synchronous across the study area and is associated with cold air temperatures. Winter stratification can begin days to weeks before ice-in; the timing of ice-in shows more variability, with both elevation and basin aspect influencing the timing. Ice-out shows both the anticipated spatial and interannual variability; some years there is strong coherence between locations while other years show high variability, possibly a function of differences in snowpack. Ice-out is not always immediately followed by the end of winter stratification, there is sometimes a lag of days to weeks before the lakes mix. If the warm temperatures that lead to ice-out are followed by calm days without significant wind, the surface of some lakes begins to warm quickly maintaining the density difference and prolonging winter stratification. The longer the lag time, the stronger the density difference becomes which may also result in a very brief period of mixing in the spring prior to set-up of summer stratification. This year's El Niño event resulted

Simulation of lake ice and its effect on the late-Pleistocene evaporation rate of Lake Lahontan

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hostetler, S.W.

1991-01-01

A model of lake ice was coupled with a model of lake temperature and evaporation to assess the possible effect of ice cover on the late-Pleistocene evaporation rate of Lake Lahontan. The simulations were done using a data set based on proxy temperature indicators and features of the simulated late-Pleistocene atmospheric circulation over western North America. When a data set based on a mean-annual air temperature of 3?? C (7?? C colder than present) and reduced solar radiation from jet-stream induced cloud cover was used as input to the model, ice cover lasting ??? 4 months was simulated. Simulated evaporation rates (490-527 mm a-1) were ??? 60% lower than the present-day evaporation rate (1300 mm a-1) of Pyramid Lake. With this reduced rate of evaporation, water inputs similar to the 1983 historical maxima that occurred in the Lahontan basin would have been sufficient to maintain the 13.5 ka BP high stand of Lake Lahontan. ?? 1991 Springer-Verlag.

Retrieval of sea ice thickness during Arctic summer using melt pond color

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Istomina, L.; Nicolaus, M.; Heygster, G.

2016-12-01

The thickness of sea ice is an important climatic variable. Together with the ice concentration, it defines the total sea ice volume, is linked within the climatic feedback mechanisms and affects the Arctic energy balance greatly. During Arctic summer, the sea ice cover changes rapidly, which includes the presence of melt ponds, as well as reduction of ice albedo and ice thickness. Currently available remote sensing retrievals of sea ice thickness utilize data from altimeter, microwave, thermal infrared sensors and their combinations. All of these methods are compromised in summer in the presence of melt. This only leaves in situ and airborne sea ice thickness data available in summer. At the same time, data of greater coverage is needed for assimilation in global circulation models and correct estimation of ice mass balance.This study presents a new approach to estimate sea ice thickness in summer in the presence of melt ponds. Analysis of field data obtained during the RV "Polarstern" cruise ARK27/3 (August - October 2012) has shown a clear connection of ice thickness under melt ponds to their measured spectral albedo and to melt pond color in the hue-saturation-luminance color space from field photographs. An empirical function is derived from the HSL values and applied to aerial imagery obtained during various airborne campaigns. Comparison to in situ ice thickness shows a good correspondence to the ice thickness value retrieved in the melt ponds. A similar retrieval is developed for satellite spectral bands using the connection of the measured pond spectral albedo to the ice thickness within the melt ponds. Correction of the retrieved ice thickness in ponds to derive total thickness of sea ice is discussed. Case studies and application to very high resolution optical data are presented, as well as a concept to transfer the method to satellite data of lower spatial resolution where melt ponds become subpixel features.

Autonomous Sea-Ice Thickness Survey

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-06-01

to tow an electromagnetic induction meter over sea ice in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. This proof-of-concept survey aimed to demonstrate improved...EM31 electromagnetic ice-thickness meter along the Pegasus Cut- Off Road near McMurdo Station, Antarctic, on 11 November 2014...supported the GPS antenna (white disk). The orange 200 MHz antenna and smaller 400 MHz antenna (not visible) mounted in front of the black case. The

Role of rafting in the mechanical redistribution of sea ice thickness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Babko, O.; Rothrock, D. A.; Maykut, G. A.

2002-08-01

Ice draft data derived from upward looking sonar observations collected during a Scientific Ice Expeditions (SCICEX) submarine cruise in the Arctic Ocean have been used to test the ice thickness distribution theory of Thorndike et al. [1975]. Two separate ice draft surveys, 40 days apart, were made during the fall of 1996 in a circular Lagrangian region ~180 km across. Air temperature and deformation data from buoys in the region were used to force an ice thickness distribution model in an effort to reproduce the changes observed over the 40 day interval. Initial tests with an elementary ridging treatment were unsuccessful in predicting the observed change in the ice thickness distribution. The shape of the distribution suggested that both ridging and rafting of ice were involved in the redistribution process. Modifying the theory to include rafting along with ridging resulted in much improved agreement between the modeled and observed ice thickness distributions. This result, taken together with many other field observations, leads us to believe that rafting is an important component of the mechanical redistribution of ice thickness during the fall.

Influence of ice thickness and surface properties on light transmission through Arctic sea ice

PubMed Central

Arndt, Stefanie; Nicolaus, Marcel; Perovich, Donald K.; Jakuba, Michael V.; Suman, Stefano; Elliott, Stephen; Whitcomb, Louis L.; McFarland, Christopher J.; Gerdes, Rüdiger; Boetius, Antje; German, Christopher R.

2015-01-01

Abstract The observed changes in physical properties of sea ice such as decreased thickness and increased melt pond cover severely impact the energy budget of Arctic sea ice. Increased light transmission leads to increased deposition of solar energy in the upper ocean and thus plays a crucial role for amount and timing of sea‐ice‐melt and under‐ice primary production. Recent developments in underwater technology provide new opportunities to study light transmission below the largely inaccessible underside of sea ice. We measured spectral under‐ice radiance and irradiance using the new Nereid Under‐Ice (NUI) underwater robotic vehicle, during a cruise of the R/V Polarstern to 83°N 6°W in the Arctic Ocean in July 2014. NUI is a next generation hybrid remotely operated vehicle (H‐ROV) designed for both remotely piloted and autonomous surveys underneath land‐fast and moving sea ice. Here we present results from one of the first comprehensive scientific dives of NUI employing its interdisciplinary sensor suite. We combine under‐ice optical measurements with three dimensional under‐ice topography (multibeam sonar) and aerial images of the surface conditions. We investigate the influence of spatially varying ice‐thickness and surface properties on the spatial variability of light transmittance during summer. Our results show that surface properties such as melt ponds dominate the spatial distribution of the under‐ice light field on small scales (<1000 m2), while sea ice‐thickness is the most important predictor for light transmission on larger scales. In addition, we propose the use of an algorithm to obtain histograms of light transmission from distributions of sea ice thickness and surface albedo. PMID:27660738

Thick or Thin Ice Shell on Europa?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2007-01-01

Scientists are all but certain that Europa has an ocean underneath its icy surface, but they do not know how thick this ice might be. This artist concept illustrates two possible cut-away views through Europa's ice shell. In both, heat escapes, possibly volcanically, from Europa's rocky mantle and is carried upward by buoyant oceanic currents. If the heat from below is intense and the ice shell is thin enough (left), the ice shell can directly melt, causing what are called 'chaos' on Europa, regions of what appear to be broken, rotated and tilted ice blocks. On the other hand, if the ice shell is sufficiently thick (right), the less intense interior heat will be transferred to the warmer ice at the bottom of the shell, and additional heat is generated by tidal squeezing of the warmer ice. This warmer ice will slowly rise, flowing as glaciers do on Earth, and the slow but steady motion may also disrupt the extremely cold, brittle ice at the surface. Europa is no larger than Earth's moon, and its internal heating stems from its eccentric orbit about Jupiter, seen in the distance. As tides raised by Jupiter in Europa's ocean rise and fall, they may cause cracking, additional heating and even venting of water vapor into the airless sky above Europa's icy surface. (Artwork by Michael Carroll.)

The NRL 2011 Airborne Sea-Ice Thickness Campaign

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brozena, J. M.; Gardner, J. M.; Liang, R.; Ball, D.; Richter-Menge, J.

2011-12-01

In March of 2011, the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) performed a study focused on the estimation of sea-ice thickness from airborne radar, laser and photogrammetric sensors. The study was funded by ONR to take advantage of the Navy's ICEX2011 ice-camp /submarine exercise, and to serve as a lead-in year for NRL's five year basic research program on the measurement and modeling of sea-ice scheduled to take place from 2012-2017. Researchers from the Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) and NRL worked with the Navy Arctic Submarine Lab (ASL) to emplace a 9 km-long ground-truth line near the ice-camp (see Richter-Menge et al., this session) along which ice and snow thickness were directly measured. Additionally, US Navy submarines collected ice draft measurements under the groundtruth line. Repeat passes directly over the ground-truth line were flown and a grid surrounding the line was also flown to collect altimeter, LiDAR and Photogrammetry data. Five CRYOSAT-2 satellite tracks were underflown, as well, coincident with satellite passage. Estimates of sea ice thickness are calculated assuming local hydrostatic balance, and require the densities of water, ice and snow, snow depth, and freeboard (defined as the elevation of sea ice, plus accumulated snow, above local sea level). Snow thickness is estimated from the difference between LiDAR and radar altimeter profiles, the latter of which is assumed to penetrate any snow cover. The concepts we used to estimate ice thickness are similar to those employed in NASA ICEBRIDGE sea-ice thickness estimation. Airborne sensors used for our experiment were a Reigl Q-560 scanning topographic LiDAR, a pulse-limited (2 nS), 10 GHz radar altimeter and an Applanix DSS-439 digital photogrammetric camera (for lead identification). Flights were conducted on a Twin Otter aircraft from Pt. Barrow, AK, and averaged ~ 5 hours in duration. It is challenging to directly compare results from the swath LiDAR with the

Will sea ice thickness initialisation improve Arctic seasonal-to-interannual forecast skill?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Day, J. J.; Hawkins, E.; Tietsche, S.

2014-12-01

A number of recent studies have suggested that Arctic sea ice thickness is an important predictor of Arctic sea ice extent. However, coupled forecast systems do not currently use sea ice thickness observations in their initialization and are therefore missing a potentially important source of additional skill. A set of ensemble potential predictability experiments, with a global climate model, initialized with and without knowledge of the sea ice thickness initial state, have been run to investigate this. These experiments show that accurate knowledge of the sea ice thickness field is crucially important for sea ice concentration and extent forecasts up to eight months ahead. Perturbing sea ice thickness also has a significant impact on the forecast error in the 2m temperature and surface pressure fields a few months ahead. These results show that advancing capabilities to observe and assimilate sea ice thickness into coupled forecast systems could significantly increase skill.

The heterogeneous ice shell thickness of Enceladus

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lucchetti, Alice; Pozzobon, Riccardo; Mazzarini, Francesco; Cremonese, Gabriele; Massironi, Matteo

2016-10-01

Saturn's moon Enceladus is the smallest Solar System body that presents an intense geologic activity on its surface. Plumes erupting from Enceladus' South Polar terrain (SPT) provide direct evidence of a reservoir of liquid below the surface. Previous analysis of gravity data determined that the ice shell above the liquid ocean must be 30-40 km thick from the South Pole up to 50° S latitude (Iess et al., 2014), however, understand the global or regional nature of the ocean beneath the ice crust is still challenging. To infer the thickness of the outer ice shell and prove the global extent of the ocean, we used the self-similar clustering method (Bonnet et al., 2001; Bour et al., 2002) to analyze the widespread fractures of the Enceladus's surface. The spatial distribution of fractures has been analyzed in terms of their self-similar clustering and a two-point correlation method was used to measure the fractal dimension of the fractures population (Mazzarini, 2004, 2010). A self-similar clustering of fractures is characterized by a correlation coefficient with a size range defined by a lower and upper cut-off, that represent a mechanical discontinuity and the thickness of the fractured icy crust, thus connected to the liquid reservoir. Hence, this method allowed us to estimate the icy shell thickness values in different regions of Enceladus from SPT up to northern regions.We mapped fractures in ESRI ArcGis environment in different regions of the satellite improving the recently published geological map (Crow-Willard and Pappalardo, 2015). On these regions we have taken into account the fractures, such as wide troughs and narrow troughs, located in well-defined geological units. Firstly, we analyzed the distribution of South Polar Region fracture patterns finding an ice shell thickness of ~ 31 km, in agreement with gravity measurements (Iess et al., 2014). Then, we applied the same approach to other four regions of the satellite inferring an increasing of the ice

Arctic Sea Ice Thickness - Past, Present And Future

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wadhams, P.

2007-12-01

In November 2005 the International Workshop on Arctic Sea Ice Thickness: Past, Present and Future was held at Rungstedgaard Conference Center, near Copenhagen, Denmark. The proceedings of the Workshop were subsequently published as a book by the European Commission. In this review we summarise the conclusions of the Workshop on the techniques which show the greatest promise for thickness monitoring on different spatial and temporal scales, and for different purposes. Sonic methods, EM techniques, buoys and satellite methods will be considered. Some copies of the book will be available at the lecture, and others can be ordered from the European Commission. The paper goes on to consider early results from some of the latest measurements on Arctic sea ice thickness done in 2007. These comprise a trans-Arctic voyage by a UK submarine, HMS "Tireless", equipped with a Kongsberg 3002 multibeam sonar which generates a 3-D digital terrain map of the ice underside; and experiments at the APLIS ice station in the Beaufort Sea carried out by the Gavia AUV equipped with a GeoSwath interferometric sonar. In both cases 3-D mapping of sea ice constitutes a new step forward in sea ice data collection, but in the case of the submarine the purpose is to map change in ice thickness (comparing results with a 2004 "Tireless" cruise and with US and UK data prior to 2000), while for the small AUV the purpose is intensive local mapping of a few ridges to improve our knowledge of their structure, as part of a multisensor programme

Theory of the Sea Ice Thickness Distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toppaladoddi, Srikanth; Wettlaufer, J. S.

2015-10-01

We use concepts from statistical physics to transform the original evolution equation for the sea ice thickness distribution g (h ) from Thorndike et al. into a Fokker-Planck-like conservation law. The steady solution is g (h )=N (q )hqe-h /H, where q and H are expressible in terms of moments over the transition probabilities between thickness categories. The solution exhibits the functional form used in observational fits and shows that for h ≪1 , g (h ) is controlled by both thermodynamics and mechanics, whereas for h ≫1 only mechanics controls g (h ). Finally, we derive the underlying Langevin equation governing the dynamics of the ice thickness h , from which we predict the observed g (h ). The genericity of our approach provides a framework for studying the geophysical-scale structure of the ice pack using methods of broad relevance in statistical mechanics.

Theory of the Sea Ice Thickness Distribution.

PubMed

Toppaladoddi, Srikanth; Wettlaufer, J S

2015-10-02

We use concepts from statistical physics to transform the original evolution equation for the sea ice thickness distribution g(h) from Thorndike et al. into a Fokker-Planck-like conservation law. The steady solution is g(h)=N(q)h(q)e(-h/H), where q and H are expressible in terms of moments over the transition probabilities between thickness categories. The solution exhibits the functional form used in observational fits and shows that for h≪1, g(h) is controlled by both thermodynamics and mechanics, whereas for h≫1 only mechanics controls g(h). Finally, we derive the underlying Langevin equation governing the dynamics of the ice thickness h, from which we predict the observed g(h). The genericity of our approach provides a framework for studying the geophysical-scale structure of the ice pack using methods of broad relevance in statistical mechanics.

Thickness of a Europan ice shell from impact crater simulations.

PubMed

Turtle, E P; Pierazzo, E

2001-11-09

Several impact craters on Jupiter's satellite Europa exhibit central peaks. On the terrestrial planets, central peaks consist of fractured but competent rock uplifted during cratering. Therefore, the observation of central peaks on Europa indicates that an ice layer must be sufficiently thick that the impact events did not completely penetrate it. We conducted numerical simulations of vapor and melt production during cratering of water ice layers overlying liquid water to estimate the thickness of Europa's icy crust. Because impacts disrupt material well beyond the zone of partial melting, our simulations put a lower limit on ice thickness at the locations and times of impact. We conclude that the ice must be more than 3 to 4 kilometers thick.

Trends in ice formation at Lake Neusiedl since 1931 and large-scale oscillation patterns

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soja, Anna-Maria; Maracek, Karl; Soja, Gerhard

2013-04-01

Ice formation at Lake Neusiedl (Neusiedler See, Fertitó), a shallow steppe lake (area 320 km2, mean depth 1.2 m) at the border of Austria/Hungary, is of ecological and economic importance. Ice sailing and skating help to keep a touristic off-season alive. Reed harvest to maintain the ecological function of the reed belt (178 km2) is facilitated when lake surface is frozen. Changes in ice formation were analysed in the frame of the EULAKES-project (European Lakes under Environmental Stressors, www.eulakes.eu), financed by the Central Europe Programme of the EU. Data records of ice-on, ice duration and ice-off at Lake Neusiedl starting with the year 1931, and air temperature (nearby monitoring station Eisenstadt - Sopron (HISTALP database and ZAMG)) were used to investigate nearly 80 winters. Additionally, influences of 8 teleconnection patterns, i.e. the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the East Atlantic pattern (EAP), the East Atlantic/West Russia pattern (EA/WR), the Eastern Mediterranean Pattern (EMP), the Mediterranean Oscillation (MO) for Algiers and Cairo, and for Israel and Gibraltar, resp., the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Scandinavia pattern (SCA) were assessed. Ice cover of Lake Neusiedl showed a high variability between the years (mean duration 71±27 days). Significant trends for later ice-on (p=0.02), shorter ice duration (p=0.07) and earlier ice-off (p=0.02) for the period 1931-2011 were found by regression analysis and trend analysis tests. On an average, freezing of Lake Neusiedl started 2 days later per decade and ice melting began 2 days earlier per decade. Close relationships between mean air temperature and ice formation could be found: ice-on showed a dependency on summer (R=+0.28) and autumn air temperatures (R=+0.51), ice duration and ice off was related to autumn (R=-0.36 and -0.24), winter (R=-0.73 and -0.61) and concurrent spring air temperatures (R=-0.44). Increases of air temperature by 1° C caused an 8.4 days later

Determination of a Critical Sea Ice Thickness Threshold for the Central Arctic Ocean

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ford, V.; Frauenfeld, O. W.; Nowotarski, C. J.

2017-12-01

While sea ice extent is readily measurable from satellite observations and can be used to assess the overall survivability of the Arctic sea ice pack, determining the spatial variability of sea ice thickness remains a challenge. Turbulent and conductive heat fluxes are extremely sensitive to ice thickness but are dominated by the sensible heat flux, with energy exchange expected to increase with thinner ice cover. Fluxes over open water are strongest and have the greatest influence on the atmosphere, while fluxes over thick sea ice are minimal as heat conduction from the ocean through thick ice cannot reach the atmosphere. We know that turbulent energy fluxes are strongest over open ocean, but is there a "critical thickness of ice" where fluxes are considered non-negligible? Through polar-optimized Weather Research and Forecasting model simulations, this study assesses how the wintertime Arctic surface boundary layer, via sensible heat flux exchange and surface air temperature, responds to sea ice thinning. The region immediately north of Franz Josef Land is characterized by a thickness gradient where sea ice transitions from the thickest multi-year ice to the very thin marginal ice seas. This provides an ideal location to simulate how the diminishing Arctic sea ice interacts with a warming atmosphere. Scenarios include both fixed sea surface temperature domains for idealized thickness variability, and fixed ice fields to detect changes in the ocean-ice-atmosphere energy exchange. Results indicate that a critical thickness threshold exists below 1 meter. The threshold is between 0.4-1 meters thinner than the critical thickness for melt season survival - the difference between first year and multi-year ice. Turbulent heat fluxes and surface air temperature increase as sea ice thickness transitions from perennial ice to seasonal ice. While models predict a sea ice free Arctic at the end of the warm season in future decades, sea ice will continue to transform

The influence of ice on southern Lake Michigan coastal erosion

USGS Publications Warehouse

Barnes, P.W.; Kempema, E.W.; Reimnitz, E.; McCormick, M.

1994-01-01

Coastal ice does not protect the coast but enhances erosion by displacing severe winter wave energy from the beach to the shoreface and by entraining and transporting sediment alongshore and offshore. Three aspects of winter ice in Lake Michigan were studied over a 3-year period and found to have an important influence on coastal sediment dynamics and the coastal sediment budget: (1) the influence of coastal ice on shoreface morphology, (2) the transport of littoral sediments by ice, and (3) the formation of anchor and underwater ice as a frequent and important event entraining and transporting sediment. The nearshore ice complex contains a sediment load (0.2 - 1.2 t/m of coast) that is roughly equivalent to the average amount of sand eroded from the coastal bluffs and to the amount of sand ice- rafted offshore to the deep lake basin each year. -from Authors

Lake ice records used to detect historical and future climatic changes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Robertson, Dale M.; Ragotzkie, R.A.; Magnuson, John J.

1992-01-01

With the relationships between air temperature and freeze and break up dates, we can project how the ice cover of Lake Mendota should respond to future climatic changes. If warming occurs, the ice cover for Lake Mendota should decrease approximately 11 days per 1 °C increase. With a warming of 4 to 5 °C, years with no ice cover should occur in approximately 1 out of 15 to 30 years.

Timing of Glacial Lake Missoula Outburst Floods and the southwestern Cordilleran Ice Sheet retreat.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hendy, I. L.; Bervid, H. D.; Carlson, A. E.

2017-12-01

Glacial Lake Missoula formed when the Purcell Trench Lobe dammed the Clark Fork River in Montana and catastrophically collapsed repeatedly through the last glacial period as the southern Cordilleran Ice Sheet advanced and retreated. A well-dated 50-kyr jumbo piston core MD02-2496 (48.97˚ N, 127.04˚ W, water depth of 1243 m) collected from the continental slope 75 km off Vancouver Island contains evidence of these floods. The in-situ bulk elemental composition of the 35-m core was determined at 1 mm intervals using an ITRAX X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) Core Scanner (Cox Analytical Instruments) at the Sediment Geochemistry Lab of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. With 40 mixed planktonic foraminifera and bulk organic carbon 14C ages, the core provides a high-resolution resolution record of glaciomarine sedimentation during deglaciation. A series of >81 layers of fine-grained sediments with ancient (K/Ar ages of 300 Ma and eNd of -8) shale-like (high Rb counts) composition can be found between 19.6 and 9.2 m below coretop. These layers are interspersed by coarser grained, young (K/Ar ages of 100 Ma and eNd of -3) sediments containing ice-rafted debris (IRD). The composition and age of the layers indicates the sediments originated in Glacial Lake Missoula and were transported by ocean currents 250 miles north along the west coast of North America. The flood layers begin at 19.5 ka with five thin (<5 cm thick) layers before thick flood layers (>5 cm thick) appear after 19.3 ka. At 17.1 ka, IRD concentrations increase from <1 grain g-1 to 20 grains g-1, and remain >50 grains g-1 from 16.5-16.35 ka, except in flood layers, as the Juan de Fuca Strait deglaciated. Another 16 flood layers occur from 16.3-15.65 ka; however, the base and top of these layers are diffuse rather than abrupt like earlier flood layers suggesting enhanced mixing between flood and melt waters. The final flood layers from 14.9-14.5 ka are thin (<2 cm thick

CARBON TRACE GASES IN LAKE AND BEAVER POND ICE NEAR THOMPSON, MANITOBA, CANADA

EPA Science Inventory

Concentrations of CO2, CO, and CH4 were measured in beaver pond and lake ice in April 1996 near Thompson, Manitoba to derive information on possible impacts of ice melting on corresponding atmospheric trace gas concentrations. CH4 concentrations in beaver pond and lake ice ranged...

Links Between Acceleration, Melting, and Supraglacial Lake Drainage of the Western Greenland Ice Sheet

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hoffman, M. J.; Catania, G. A.; Newmann, T. A.; Andrews, L. C.; Rumrill, J. A.

2012-01-01

The impact of increasing summer melt on the dynamics and stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet is not fully understood. Mounting evidence suggests seasonal evolution of subglacial drainage mitigates or counteracts the ability of surface runoff to increase basal sliding. Here, we compare subdaily ice velocity and uplift derived from nine Global Positioning System stations in the upper ablation zone in west Greenland to surface melt and supraglacial lake drainage during summer 2007. Starting around day 173, we observe speedups of 6-41% above spring velocity lasting approximately 40 days accompanied by sustained surface uplift at most stations, followed by a late summer slowdown. After initial speedup, we see a spatially uniform velocity response across the ablation zone and strong diurnal velocity variations during periods of melting. Most lake drainages were undetectable in the velocity record, and those that were detected only perturbed velocities for approximately 1 day, suggesting preexisting drainage systems could efficiently drain large volumes of water. The dynamic response to melt forcing appears to 1) be driven by changes in subglacial storage of water that is delivered in diurnal and episodic pulses, and 2) decrease over the course of the summer, presumably as the subglacial drainage system evolves to greater efficiency. The relationship between hydrology and ice dynamics observed is similar to that observed on mountain glaciers, suggesting that seasonally large water pressures under the ice sheet largely compensate for the greater ice thickness considered here. Thus, increases in summer melting may not guarantee faster seasonal ice flow.

Links Between Acceleration, Melting, and Supraglacial Lake Drainage of the Western Greenland Ice Sheet

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hoffman, M. J.; Catania, G. A.; Neumann, T. A.; Andrews, L. C.; Rumrill, J. A.

2011-01-01

The impact of increasing summer melt on the dynamics and stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet is not fully understood. Mounting evidence suggests seasonal evolution of subglacial drainage mitigates or counteracts the ability of surface runoff to increase basal sliding. Here, we compare subdaily ice velocity and uplift derived from nine Global Positioning System stations in the upper ablation zone in west Greenland to surface melt and supraglacial lake drainage during summer 2007. Starting around day 173, we observe speedups of 6-41% above spring velocity lasting 40 days accompanied by sustained surface uplift at most stations, followed by a late summer slowdown. After initial speedup, we see a spatially uniform velocity response across the ablation zone and strong diurnal velocity variations during periods of melting. Most lake drainages were undetectable in the velocity record, and those that were detected only perturbed velocities for approx 1 day, suggesting preexisting drainage systems could efficiently drain large volumes of water. The dynamic response to melt forcing appears to (1) be driven by changes in subglacial storage of water that is delivered in diurnal and episodic pulses, and (2) decrease over the course of the summer, presumably as the subglacial drainage system evolves to greater efficiency. The relationship between hydrology and ice dynamics observed is similar to that observed on mountain glaciers, suggesting that seasonally large water pressures under the ice sheet largely compensate for the greater ice thickness considered here. Thus, increases in summer melting may not guarantee faster seasonal ice flow.

Estimation of Arctic Sea Ice Freeboard and Thickness Using CryoSat-2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, S.; Im, J.; Kim, J. W.; Kim, M.; Shin, M.

2014-12-01

Arctic sea ice is one of the significant components of the global climate system as it plays a significant role in driving global ocean circulation. Sea ice extent has constantly declined since 1980s. Arctic sea ice thickness has also been diminishing along with the decreasing sea ice extent. Because extent and thickness, two main characteristics of sea ice, are important indicators of the polar response to on-going climate change. Sea ice thickness has been measured with numerous field techniques such as surface drilling and deploying buoys. These techniques provide sparse and discontinuous data in spatiotemporal domain. Spaceborne radar and laser altimeters can overcome these limitations and have been used to estimate sea ice thickness. Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICEsat), a laser altimeter provided data to detect polar area elevation change between 2003 and 2009. CryoSat-2 launched with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)/Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL) in April 2010 can provide data to estimate time-series of Arctic sea ice thickness. In this study, Arctic sea ice freeboard and thickness between 2011 and 2014 were estimated using CryoSat-2 SAR and SARIn mode data that have sea ice surface height relative to the reference ellipsoid WGS84. In order to estimate sea ice thickness, freeboard, i.e., elevation difference between the top of sea ice surface should be calculated. Freeboard can be estimated through detecting leads. We proposed a novel lead detection approach. CryoSat-2 profiles such as pulse peakiness, backscatter sigma-0, stack standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis were examined to distinguish leads from sea ice. Near-real time cloud-free MODIS images corresponding to CryoSat-2 data measured were used to visually identify leads. Rule-based machine learning approaches such as See5.0 and random forest were used to identify leads. The proposed lead detection approach better distinguished leads from sea ice than the existing approaches

Genomes of Novel Microbial Lineages Assembled from the Sub-Ice Waters of Lake Baikal

PubMed Central

Cabello-Yeves, Pedro J.; Zemskaya, Tamara I.; Rosselli, Riccardo; Coutinho, Felipe H.; Zakharenko, Alexandra S.; Blinov, Vadim V.

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT We present a metagenomic study of Lake Baikal (East Siberia). Two samples obtained from the water column under the ice cover (5 and 20 m deep) in March 2016 have been deep sequenced and the reads assembled to generate metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) that are representative of the microbes living in this special environment. Compared with freshwater bodies studied around the world, Lake Baikal had an unusually high fraction of Verrucomicrobia. Other groups, such as Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria, were in proportions similar to those found in other lakes. The genomes (and probably cells) tended to be small, presumably reflecting the extremely oligotrophic and cold prevalent conditions. Baikal microbes are novel lineages recruiting very little from other water bodies and are distantly related to other freshwater microbes. Despite their novelty, they showed the closest relationship to genomes discovered by similar approaches from other freshwater lakes and reservoirs. Some of them were particularly similar to MAGs from the Baltic Sea, which, although it is brackish, connected to the ocean, and much more eutrophic, has similar climatological conditions. Many of the microbes contained rhodopsin genes, indicating that, in spite of the decreased light penetration allowed by the thick ice/snow cover, photoheterotrophy could be widespread in the water column, either because enough light penetrates or because the microbes are already adapted to the summer ice-less conditions. We have found a freshwater SAR11 subtype I/II representative showing striking synteny with Pelagibacter ubique strains, as well as a phage infecting the widespread freshwater bacterium Polynucleobacter. IMPORTANCE Despite the increasing number of metagenomic studies on different freshwater bodies, there is still a missing component in oligotrophic cold lakes suffering from long seasonal frozen cycles. Here, we describe microbial genomes from metagenomic assemblies that appear in the upper

Genomes of Novel Microbial Lineages Assembled from the Sub-Ice Waters of Lake Baikal.

PubMed

Cabello-Yeves, Pedro J; Zemskaya, Tamara I; Rosselli, Riccardo; Coutinho, Felipe H; Zakharenko, Alexandra S; Blinov, Vadim V; Rodriguez-Valera, Francisco

2018-01-01

We present a metagenomic study of Lake Baikal (East Siberia). Two samples obtained from the water column under the ice cover (5 and 20 m deep) in March 2016 have been deep sequenced and the reads assembled to generate metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) that are representative of the microbes living in this special environment. Compared with freshwater bodies studied around the world, Lake Baikal had an unusually high fraction of Verrucomicrobia Other groups, such as Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria , were in proportions similar to those found in other lakes. The genomes (and probably cells) tended to be small, presumably reflecting the extremely oligotrophic and cold prevalent conditions. Baikal microbes are novel lineages recruiting very little from other water bodies and are distantly related to other freshwater microbes. Despite their novelty, they showed the closest relationship to genomes discovered by similar approaches from other freshwater lakes and reservoirs. Some of them were particularly similar to MAGs from the Baltic Sea, which, although it is brackish, connected to the ocean, and much more eutrophic, has similar climatological conditions. Many of the microbes contained rhodopsin genes, indicating that, in spite of the decreased light penetration allowed by the thick ice/snow cover, photoheterotrophy could be widespread in the water column, either because enough light penetrates or because the microbes are already adapted to the summer ice-less conditions. We have found a freshwater SAR11 subtype I/II representative showing striking synteny with Pelagibacter ubique strains, as well as a phage infecting the widespread freshwater bacterium Polynucleobacter IMPORTANCE Despite the increasing number of metagenomic studies on different freshwater bodies, there is still a missing component in oligotrophic cold lakes suffering from long seasonal frozen cycles. Here, we describe microbial genomes from metagenomic assemblies that appear in the upper water

Ice patterns and hydrothermal plumes, Lake Baikal, Russia - Insights from Space Shuttle hand-held photography

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Evans, Cynthia A.; Helfert, Michael R.; Helms, David R.

1992-01-01

Earth photography from the Space Shuttle is used to examine the ice cover on Lake Baikal and correlate the patterns of weakened and melting ice with known hydrothermal areas in the Siberian lake. Particular zones of melted and broken ice may be surface expressions of elevated heat flow in Lake Baikal. The possibility is explored that hydrothermal vents can introduce local convective upwelling and disrupt a stable water column to the extent that the melt zones which are observed in the lake's ice cover are produced. A heat flow map and photographs of the lake are overlaid to compare specific areas of thinned or broken ice with the hot spots. The regions of known hydrothermal activity and high heat flow correlate extremely well with circular regions of thinned ice, and zones of broken and recrystallized ice. Local and regional climate data and other sources of warm water, such as river inlets, are considered.

Formation and character of an ancient 19-m ice cover and underlying trapped brine in an "ice-sealed" east Antarctic lake.

PubMed

Doran, Peter T; Fritsen, Christian H; McKay, Christopher P; Priscu, John C; Adams, Edward E

2003-01-07

Lake Vida, one of the largest lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, was previously believed to be shallow (<10 m) and frozen to its bed year-round. New ice-core analysis and temperature data show that beneath 19 m of ice is a water column composed of a NaCl brine with a salinity seven times that of seawater that remains liquid below -10 degrees C. The ice cover thickens at both its base and surface, sealing concentrated brine beneath. The ice cover is stabilized by a negative feedback between ice growth and the freezing-point depression of the brine. The ice cover contains frozen microbial mats throughout that are viable after thawing and has a history that extends to at least 2,800 (14)C years B.P., suggesting that the brine has been isolated from the atmosphere for as long. To our knowledge, Lake Vida has the thickest subaerial lake ice cover recorded and may represent a previously undiscovered end-member lacustrine ecosystem on Earth.

On the estimation of ice thickness from scattering observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, T. D.; Squire, V. A.

2010-04-01

This paper is inspired by the proposition that it may be possible to extract descriptive physical parameters - in particular the ice thickness, of a sea-ice field from ocean wave information. The motivation is that mathematical theory describing wave propagation in such media has reached a point where the inherent heterogeneity, expressed as pressure ridge keels and sails, leads, thickness variations and changes of material property and draught, can be fully assimilated exactly or through approximations whose limitations are understood. On the basis that leads have the major wave scattering effect for most sea-ice [Williams, T.D., Squire, V.A., 2004. Oblique scattering of plane flexural-gravity waves by heterogeneities in sea ice. Proc. R. Soc. Lon. Ser.-A 460 (2052), 3469-3497], a model two dimensional sea-ice sheet composed of a large number of such features, randomly dispersed, is constructed. The wide spacing approximation is used to predict how wave trains of different period will be affected, after first establishing that this produces results that are very close to the exact solution. Like Kohout and Meylan [Kohout, A.L., Meylan, M.H., 2008. An elastic plate model for wave attenuation and ice floe breaking in the marginal ice zone. J. Geophys. Res. 113, C09016, doi:10.1029/2007JC004434], we find that on average the magnitude of a wave transmitted by a field of leads decays exponentially with the number of leads. Then, by fitting a curve based on this assumption to the data, the thickness of the ice sheet is obtained. The attenuation coefficient can always be calculated numerically by ensemble averaging but in some cases more rapidly computed approximations work extremely well. Moreover, it is found that the underlying thickness can be determined to good accuracy by the method as long as Archimedean draught is correctly provided for, suggesting that waves can indeed be effective as a remote sensing agent to measure ice thickness in areas where pressure ridges

Thin Sea-Ice Thickness as Inferred from Passive Microwave and In Situ Observations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Naoki, Kazuhiro; Ukita, Jinro; Nishio, Fumihiko; Nakayama, Masashige; Comiso, Josefino C.; Gasiewski, Al

2007-01-01

Since microwave radiometric signals from sea-ice strongly reflect physical conditions of a layer near the ice surface, a relationship of brightness temperature with thickness is possible especially during the early stages of ice growth. Sea ice is most saline during formation stage and as the salinity decreases with time while at the same time the thickness of the sea ice increases, a corresponding change in the dielectric properties and hence the brightness temperature may occur. This study examines the extent to which the relationships of thickness with brightness temperature (and with emissivity) hold for thin sea-ice, approximately less than 0.2 -0.3 m, using near concurrent measurements of sea-ice thickness in the Sea of Okhotsk from a ship and passive microwave brightness temperature data from an over-flying aircraft. The results show that the brightness temperature and emissivity increase with ice thickness for the frequency range of 10-37 GHz. The relationship is more pronounced at lower frequencies and at the horizontal polarization. We also established an empirical relationship between ice thickness and salinity in the layer near the ice surface from a field experiment, which qualitatively support the idea that changes in the near-surface brine characteristics contribute to the observed thickness-brightness temperature/emissivity relationship. Our results suggest that for thin ice, passive microwave radiometric signals contain, ice thickness information which can be utilized in polar process studies.

Arctic Sea ice thickness loss determined using subsurface, aircraft, and satellite observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindsay, R. W.; Schweiger, A. J. B.

2014-12-01

Sea ice thickness is a fundamental climate state variable. However, observations of ice thickness have been sparse in time and space making the construction of observation-based time series difficult. Moreover, different groups use a variety of methods and processing procedures to measure ice thickness and each observational source likely has different and poorly characterized measurement and sampling biases. Observational sources include upward looking sonars mounted on submarines or moorings, electromagnetic sensors on helicopters or aircraft, and lidar or radar altimeters on airplanes or satellites. Are these data sources now adequate so that we can construct time series of the mean sea ice thickness with meaningful information about thickness changes? How do the different measurement systems compare in the mean? Are there systematic differences? Very few of the observations provide overlapping measurements of ice of a variety of thickness classes or types for direct comparisons. Error characteristics may vary considerably depending on the presence or thickness of the ridged ice. Here we use a curve-fitting approach to evaluate the systematic differences between eight different observation systems in the Arctic Basin, including ICESat and IceBridge measurements. The approach determines the large-scale spatial and temporal variability of the ice thickness as well as the mean differences between the observation systems using over 3000 estimates of the ice thickness. The thickness estimates are measured over spatial scales of approximately 50 km or time scales of 1 month and the primary time period analyzed is 2000-2013 when the modern mix of observations is available. Good agreement is found between five of the systems, within 0.15 m, while systematic differences of up to 0.5 m are found for three others compare to the five. The annual mean ice thickness for the central Arctic Basin based on observations only has decreased from 3.45 m in 1975 to 1.11 m in 2013, a

Snowmelt Pattern and Lake Ice Phenology around Tibetan Plateau Estimated from Enhanced Resolution Passive Microwave Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiong, C.; Shi, J.; Wang, T.

2017-12-01

Snow and ice is very sensitive to the climate change. Rising air temperature will cause the snowmelt time change. In contrast, the change in snow state will have feedback on climate through snow albedo. The snow melt timing is also correlated with the associated runoff. Ice phenology describes the seasonal cycle of lake ice cover and includes freeze-up and breakup periods and ice cover duration, which is an important weather and climate indicator. It is also important for lake-atmosphere interactions and hydrological and ecological processes. The enhanced resolution (up to 3.125 km) passive microwave data is used to estimate the snowmelt pattern and lake ice phenology on and around Tibetan Plateau. The enhanced resolution makes the estimation of snowmelt and lake ice phenology in more spatial detail compared to previous 25 km gridded passive microwave data. New algorithm based on smooth filters and change point detection was developed to estimate the snowmelt and lake ice freeze-up and break-up timing. Spatial and temporal pattern of snowmelt and lake ice phonology are estimated. This study provides an objective evidence of climate change impact on the cryospheric system on Tibetan Plateau. The results show significant earlier snowmelt and lake ice break-up in some regions.

Estimation of Arctic Sea Ice Freeboard and Thickness Using CryoSat-2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Sanggyun; Im, Jungho; yoon, Hyeonjin; Shin, Minso; Kim, Miae

2014-05-01

Arctic sea ice is one of the significant components of the global climate system as it plays a significant role in driving global ocean circulation, provides a continuous insulating layer at air-sea interface, and reflects a large portion of the incoming solar radiation in Polar Regions. Sea ice extent has constantly declined since 1980s. Its area was the lowest ever recorded on 16 September 2012 since the satellite record began in 1979. Arctic sea ice thickness has also been diminishing along with the decreasing sea ice extent. Because extent and thickness, two main characteristics of sea ice, are important indicators of the polar response to on-going climate change, there has been a great effort to quantify them using various approaches. Sea ice thickness has been measured with numerous field techniques such as surface drilling and deploying buoys. These techniques provide sparse and discontinuous data in spatiotemporal domain. Spaceborne radar and laser altimeters can overcome these limitations and have been used to estimate sea ice thickness. Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICEsat), a laser altimeter from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), provided data to detect polar area elevation change between 2003 and 2009. CryoSat-2 launched with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)/Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL) on April 2010 can provide data to estimate time-series of Arctic sea ice thickness. In this study, Arctic sea ice freeboard and thickness in 2012 and 2013 were estimated using CryoSat-2 SAR mode data that has sea ice surface height relative to the reference ellipsoid WGS84. In order to estimate sea ice thickness, freeboard height, elevation difference between the top of sea ice surface and leads should be calculated. CryoSat-2 profiles such as pulse peakiness, backscatter sigma-0, number of echoes, and significant wave height were examined to distinguish leads from sea ice. Several near-real time cloud-free MODIS images as CryoSat-2

Sea Ice Kinematics and Thickness from RGPS: Observations and Theory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stern, Harry; Lindsay, Ron; Yu, Yan-Ling; Moritz, Richard; Rothrock, Drew

2005-01-01

The RADARSAT Geophysical Processor System (RGPS) has produced a wealth of data on Arctic sea ice motion, deformation, and thickness with broad geographical coverage and good temporal resolution. These data provide unprecedented spatial detail of the structure and evolution of the sea ice cover. The broad purpose of this study was to take advantage of the strengths of the RGPS data set to investigate sea ice kinematics and thickness, which affect the climate through their influence on ice production, ridging, and transport (i.e. mass balance); heat flux to the atmosphere; and structure of the upper ocean mixed layer. The objectives of this study were to: (1) Explain the relationship between the discontinuous motion of the ice cover and the large-scale, smooth wind field that drives the ice; (2) Characterize the sea ice deformation in the Arctic at different temporal and spatial scales, and compare it with deformation predicted by a state-of-theart ice/ocean model; and (3) Compare RGPS-derived sea ice thickness with other data, and investigate the thinning of the Arctic sea ice cover as seen in ULS data obtained by U.S. Navy submarines. We briefly review the results of our work below, separated into the topics of sea ice deformation and sea ice thickness. This is followed by a list of publications, meetings and presentations, and other activities supported under this grant. We are attaching to this report copies of all the listed publications. Finally, we would like to point out our community service to NASA through our involvement with the ASF User Working Group and the RGPS Science Working Group, as evidenced in the list of meetings and presentations below.

Islands in the ice stream: were spawning habitats for native salmonids in the Great Lakes created by paleo-ice streams?

USGS Publications Warehouse

Riley, Stephen; Binder, Thomas R.; Tucker, Taaja R.; Menzies, John; Eyles, Nick; Janssen, John; Muir, Andrew M.; Esselman, Peter C.; Wattrus, Nigel J.; Krueger, Charles C.

2016-01-01

Lake trout Salvelinus namaycush, lake whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis and cisco Coregonus artedi are salmonid fishes native to the Laurentian Great Lakes that spawn on rocky substrates in the fall and early winter. After comparing the locations of spawning habitat for these species in the main basin of Lake Huron with surficial substrates and the hypothesized locations of fast-flowing Late Wisconsinan paleo-ice streams, we hypothesize that much of the spawning habitat for these species in Lake Huron is the result of deposition and erosion by paleo-ice streams. This hypothesis may represent a new framework for the identification and protection of spawning habitat for these native species, some of which are currently rare or extirpated in some of the Great Lakes. We further suggest that paleo-ice streams may have been responsible for the creation of native salmonid spawning habitat elsewhere in the Great Lakes and in other glaciated landscapes.

The seismic stratigraphy of Okanagan Lake, British Columbia; a record of rapid deglaciation in a deep 'fiord-lake' basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eyles, Nicholas; Mullins, Henry T.; Hine, Albert C.

1991-09-01

This paper presents the first detailed data regarding the newly discovered deep infill of Okanagan Lake. Okanagan Lake (50°00'N, 119°30'W) is 120 km long, ˜ 3-5 km wide and occupies a glacially overdeepened bedrock basin in the southern interior of British Columbia. This basin, and other elongate lakes of the region (e.g. Shuswap, Kootenay, Kalamalka, Canim and Mahood lakes), mark the site of westward flowing ice streams within successive Cordilleran ice sheets. An air gun seismic survey of Okanagan Lake shows that the bedrock floor is nearly 650 m below sea-level, more than 2000 m below the rim of the surrounding plateau. The maximum thickness of Pleistocene sediment in Okanagan Lake basin approaches 800 m. Forty-six seismic reflection traverses and an axial profile show a relatively simple stratigraphy composed of three seismic sequences argued to be no older than the last glacial cycle (< 30 ka). A discontinuous basal unit (sequence I) characterized by large-scale diffractions, and up to 460 m thick, infills the narrow, V-shaped bedrock floor of the basin and is interpreted as a boulder gravel deposited by subglacial meltwaters. Overlying seismic sequence II is composed of two sub-sequences. Sub-sequence IIa is a chaotic to massive facies up to 736 m thick. Lakeshore exposures close to where this unit reaches lake level show deformed and chaotically-bedded glaciolacustrine silts containing gravel lens and large ice-rafted boulders. The surface topography of this sub-sequence is irregular and in general mimics the form of the underlying bedrock as a result of compaction. This sequence passes laterally into stratified facies (sub-sequence IIb) at the northern end of the basin. Seismic sequence II appears to record rapid ice-proximal dumping of glaciolacustrine silt as the Okanagan glacier backwasted upvalley in a deep lake. A thin (60 m max.) laminated seismic sequence (III) drapes the hummocky surface of sequence II and represents postglacial sedimentation

Flexural-response of the McMurdo Ice Shelf to surface lake filling and drainage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Banwell, A. F.; MacAyeal, D. R.; Willis, I.; Macdonald, G. J.; Goodsell, B.

2017-12-01

Antarctic ice-shelf instability and break-up, as exhibited by the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002, remains one of the most difficult glaciological processes to observe directly. It is, however, vital to do so because ice-shelf breakup has the potential to influence the buttressing controls on inland ice discharge, and thus to affect sea level. Several mechanisms enabling Larsen B style breakup have previously been proposed, including the ability of surface lakes to introduce ice-shelf fractures when they fill and drain. During the austral summer of 2016/2017, we monitored the filling and draining of four surface lakes on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica, and the effect of these processes on ice-shelf flexure. Water-depth data from pressure sensors reveal that two lakes filled to >2 m in depth and subsequently drained over multiple week timescales, which had a simultaneous effect on vertical ice deflection in the area. Differential GPS data from 12 receivers over three months show that vertical deflection varies as a function of distance from the maximum load change (i.e. at the lake centre). Using remote sensing techniques applied to both Landsat 8 and Worldview imagery, we also quantify the meltwater volume in these two lakes through the melt season, which, together with the vertical deflection data, are used to constrain key flexural parameter values in numerical models of ice-shelf flexure.

Ice-coupled wave propagation across an abrupt change in ice rigidity, density, or thickness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barrett, Murray D.; Squire, Vernon A.

1996-09-01

The model of Fox and Squire [1990, 1991, 1994], which discusses the oblique propagation of surface gravity waves from the open sea into an ice sheet of constant thickness and properties, is augmented to include propagation across an abrupt transition of properties within a continuous ice sheet or across two dissimilar ice sheets that abut one another but are free to move independently. Rigidity, thickness, and/or density may change across the transition, allowing, for example, the modeling of ice-coupled waves into, across, and out of refrozen leads and polynyas, across cracks, and through coherent pressure ridges. Reflection and transmission behavior is reported for various changes in properties under both types of transition conditions.

Investigation of Controls on Ice Dynamics in Northeast Greenland from Ice-Thickness Change Record Using Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Csatho, B. M.; Larour, E. Y.; Schenk, A. F.; Schlegel, N.; Duncan, K.

2015-12-01

We present a new, complete ice thickness change reconstruction of the NE sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet for 1978-2014, partitioned into changes due to surface processes and ice dynamics. Elevation changes are computed from all available stereoscopic DEMs, and laser altimetry data (ICESat, ATM, LVIS). Surface Mass Balance and firn-compaction estimates are from RACMO2.3. Originating nearly at the divide of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), the dynamically active North East Ice Stream (NEGIS) is capable of rapidly transmitting ice-marginal forcing far inland. Thus, NEGIS provides a possible mechanism for a rapid drawdown of ice from the ice sheet interior as marginal warming, thinning and retreat continues. Our altimetry record shows accelerating dynamic thinning of Zachariæ Isstrom, initially limited to the deepest part of the fjord near the calving front (1978-2000) and then extending at least 75 km inland. At the same time, changes over the Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden (N79) Glacier are negligible. We also detect localized large dynamic changes at higher elevations on the ice sheet. These thickness changes, often occurring at the onset of fast flow, could indicate rapid variations of basal lubrication due to rerouting of subglacial drainage. We investigate the possible causes of the observed spatiotemporal pattern of ice sheet elevation changes using the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM). This work build on our previous studies examining the sensitivity of ice flow within the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) to key fields, including ice viscosity, basal drag. We assimilate the new altimetry record into ISSM to improve the reconstruction of basal friction and ice viscosity. Finally, airborne geophysical (gravity, magnetic) and ice-penetrating radar data is examined to identify the potential geologic controls on the ice thickness change pattern. Our study provides the first comprehensive reconstruction of ice thickness changes for the entire NEGIS drainage basin during

Formation and character of an ancient 19-m ice cover and underlying trapped brine in an “ice-sealed” east Antarctic lake

PubMed Central

Doran, Peter T.; Fritsen, Christian H.; McKay, Christopher P.; Priscu, John C.; Adams, Edward E.

2003-01-01

Lake Vida, one of the largest lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, was previously believed to be shallow (<10 m) and frozen to its bed year-round. New ice-core analysis and temperature data show that beneath 19 m of ice is a water column composed of a NaCl brine with a salinity seven times that of seawater that remains liquid below −10°C. The ice cover thickens at both its base and surface, sealing concentrated brine beneath. The ice cover is stabilized by a negative feedback between ice growth and the freezing-point depression of the brine. The ice cover contains frozen microbial mats throughout that are viable after thawing and has a history that extends to at least 2,800 14C years B.P., suggesting that the brine has been isolated from the atmosphere for as long. To our knowledge, Lake Vida has the thickest subaerial lake ice cover recorded and may represent a previously undiscovered end-member lacustrine ecosystem on Earth. PMID:12518052

Methane emission from high-latitude (>50N) lakes: Annual cycle of climatological emissions using satellite-derived lake-ice phenology and freeze-thaw dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matthews, E.; Romanski, J.; Du, J.; Watts, J. D.

2017-12-01

Lakes are increasingly recognized as potentially important contributors to global methane emissions despite occupying only a few percent of Earth's ice-free land surface. More than 40% of the global lake area lies in regions of amplified warming north of 50˚N. As with wetlands, lake emissions are sensitive to interannual fluctuations in, e.g., temperature and duration of thaw season. Several estimates of CH4emission from high-latitude lakes have been published but none relies on geospatial lake distributions and satellite-based duration and timing of thaw seasons. We report on a climatology of weekly, spatially-explicit methane emissions from high-latitude lakes. Lake break-up and freeze-up dates for lakes >50km^2 were determined from a lake-ice phenology data set derived from brightness temperature (Tb) observations of space-borne Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E/2) sensors. The lake-ice conditions for smaller lakes were estimated using an Earth System Data Record for Land Surface Freeze-Thaw State derived from Tb observations of Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR), Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I), and SSM/I Sounder (SSMIS). Climatologies encompass 2002-2015 for lake ice phenology and 1979 to 2010 for the land surface freeze-thaw state. Climatologies encompass 2003-2014 for ice phenology and 1979 to 2010 for freeze-thaw dynamics. Length and timing of typical methane-emission periods, derived from the satellite data, were integrated with daily diffusive and ebulliative methane fluxes for lake types following the work of Wik et al. (Nature, 2016) to estimate a full annual cycle of emissions from lakes >50˚N. We explored several approaches to estimate the large bursts of emissions observed over short periods during lake-ice breakup immediately prior to full lake thaw since several studies suggest that a substantial fraction of total annual emissions may occur at this time. While highly uncertain, we plan to investigate whether

Searching for life in extreme environments relevant to Jovian's Europa: Lessons from subglacial ice studies at Lake Vostok (East Antarctica)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bulat, Sergey A.; Alekhina, Irina A.; Marie, Dominique; Martins, Jean; Petit, Jean Robert

2011-08-01

The objective was to estimate the genuine microbial content of ice samples from refrozen water (accretion ice) from the subglacial Lake Vostok (Antarctica) buried beneath the 4-km thick East Antarctic ice sheet. The samples were extracted by heavy deep ice drilling from 3659 m below the surface. High pressure, a low carbon and chemical content, isolation, complete darkness and the probable excess of oxygen in water for millions of years characterize this extreme environment. A decontamination protocol was first applied to samples selected for the absence of cracks to remove the outer part contaminated by handling and drilling fluid. Preliminary indications showed the accretion ice samples to be almost gas free with a low impurity content. Flow cytometry showed the very low unevenly distributed biomass while repeated microscopic observations were unsuccessful.We used strategies of Ancient DNA research that include establishing contaminant databases and criteria to validate the amplification results. To date, positive results that passed the artifacts and contaminant databases have been obtained for a pair of bacterial phylotypes only in accretion ice samples featured by some bedrock sediments. The phylotypes included the chemolithoautotrophic thermophile Hydrogenophilus thermoluteolus and one unclassified phylotype. Combined with geochemical and geophysical considerations, our results suggest the presence of a deep biosphere, possibly thriving within some active faults of the bedrock encircling the subglacial lake, where the temperature is as high as 50 °C and in situ hydrogen is probably present.Our approach indicates that the search for life in the subglacial Lake Vostok is constrained by a high probability of forward-contamination. Our strategy includes strict decontamination procedures, thorough tracking of contaminants at each step of the analysis and validation of the results along with geophysical and ecological considerations for the lake setting. This may

Landfast ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from observations and models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howell, Stephen E. L.; Laliberté, Frédéric; Kwok, Ron; Derksen, Chris; King, Joshua

2016-07-01

Observed and modelled landfast ice thickness variability and trends spanning more than 5 decades within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) are summarized. The observed sites (Cambridge Bay, Resolute, Eureka and Alert) represent some of the Arctic's longest records of landfast ice thickness. Observed end-of-winter (maximum) trends of landfast ice thickness (1957-2014) were statistically significant at Cambridge Bay (-4.31 ± 1.4 cm decade-1), Eureka (-4.65 ± 1.7 cm decade-1) and Alert (-4.44 ± 1.6 cm -1) but not at Resolute. Over the 50+-year record, the ice thinned by ˜ 0.24-0.26 m at Cambridge Bay, Eureka and Alert with essentially negligible change at Resolute. Although statistically significant warming in spring and fall was present at all sites, only low correlations between temperature and maximum ice thickness were present; snow depth was found to be more strongly associated with the negative ice thickness trends. Comparison with multi-model simulations from Coupled Model Intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5), Ocean Reanalysis Intercomparison (ORA-IP) and Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) show that although a subset of current generation models have a "reasonable" climatological representation of landfast ice thickness and distribution within the CAA, trends are unrealistic and far exceed observations by up to 2 orders of magnitude. ORA-IP models were found to have positive correlations between temperature and ice thickness over the CAA, a feature that is inconsistent with both observations and coupled models from CMIP5.

Predicting future glacial lakes in Austria using different modelling approaches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Otto, Jan-Christoph; Helfricht, Kay; Prasicek, Günther; Buckel, Johannes; Keuschnig, Markus

2017-04-01

Glacier retreat is one of the most apparent consequences of temperature rise in the 20th and 21th centuries in the European Alps. In Austria, more than 240 new lakes have formed in glacier forefields since the Little Ice Age. A similar signal is reported from many mountain areas worldwide. Glacial lakes can constitute important environmental and socio-economic impacts on high mountain systems including water resource management, sediment delivery, natural hazards, energy production and tourism. Their development significantly modifies the landscape configuration and visual appearance of high mountain areas. Knowledge on the location, number and extent of these future lakes can be used to assess potential impacts on high mountain geo-ecosystems and upland-lowland interactions. Information on new lakes is critical to appraise emerging threads and potentials for society. The recent development of regional ice thickness models and their combination with high resolution glacier surface data allows predicting the topography below current glaciers by subtracting ice thickness from glacier surface. Analyzing these modelled glacier bed surfaces reveals overdeepenings that represent potential locations for future lakes. In order to predict the location of future glacial lakes below recent glaciers in the Austrian Alps we apply different ice thickness models using high resolution terrain data and glacier outlines. The results are compared and validated with ice thickness data from geophysical surveys. Additionally, we run the models on three different glacier extents provided by the Austrian Glacier Inventories from 1969, 1998 and 2006. Results of this historical glacier extent modelling are compared to existing glacier lakes and discussed focusing on geomorphological impacts on lake evolution. We discuss model performance and observed differences in the results in order to assess the approach for a realistic prediction of future lake locations. The presentation delivers

Development of an Algorithm for Satellite Remote Sensing of Sea and Lake Ice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dorofy, Peter T.

Satellite remote sensing of snow and ice has a long history. The traditional method for many snow and ice detection algorithms has been the use of the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI). This manuscript is composed of two parts. Chapter 1, Development of a Mid-Infrared Sea and Lake Ice Index (MISI) using the GOES Imager, discusses the desirability, development, and implementation of alternative index for an ice detection algorithm, application of the algorithm to the detection of lake ice, and qualitative validation against other ice mapping products; such as, the Ice Mapping System (IMS). Chapter 2, Application of Dynamic Threshold in a Lake Ice Detection Algorithm, continues with a discussion of the development of a method that considers the variable viewing and illumination geometry of observations throughout the day. The method is an alternative to Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) models. Evaluation of the performance of the algorithm is introduced by aggregating classified pixels within geometrical boundaries designated by IMS and obtaining sensitivity and specificity statistical measures.

In-lake carbon dioxide concentration patterns in four distinct phases in relation to ice cover dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Denfeld, B. A.; Wallin, M.; Sahlee, E.; Sobek, S.; Kokic, J.; Chmiel, H.; Weyhenmeyer, G. A.

2014-12-01

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emission estimates from inland waters include emissions at ice melt that are based on simple assumptions rather than evidence. To account for CO2 accumulation below ice and potential emissions into the atmosphere at ice melt we combined continuous CO2 concentrations with spatial CO2 sampling in an ice-covered small boreal lake. From early ice cover to ice melt, our continuous surface water CO2 concentration measurements at 2 m depth showed a temporal development in four distinct phases: In early winter, CO2 accumulated continuously below ice, most likely due to biological in-lake and catchment inputs. Thereafter, in late winter, CO2 concentrations remained rather constant below ice, as catchment inputs were minimized and vertical mixing of hypolimnetic water was cut off. As ice melt began, surface water CO2 concentrations were rapidly changing, showing two distinct peaks, the first one reflecting horizontal mixing of CO2 from surface and catchment waters, the second one reflecting deep water mixing. We detected that 83% of the CO2 accumulated in the water during ice cover left the lake at ice melt which corresponded to one third of the total CO2 storage. Our results imply that CO2 emissions at ice melt must be accurately integrated into annual CO2 emission estimates from inland waters. If up-scaling approaches assume that CO2 accumulates linearly under ice and at ice melt all CO2 accumulated during ice cover period leaves the lake again, present estimates may overestimate CO2 emissions from small ice covered lakes. Likewise, neglecting CO2 spring outbursts will result in an underestimation of CO2 emissions from small ice covered lakes.

EM Bias-Correction for Ice Thickness and Surface Roughness Retrievals over Rough Deformed Sea Ice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, L.; Gaiser, P. W.; Allard, R.; Posey, P. G.; Hebert, D. A.; Richter-Menge, J.; Polashenski, C. M.

2016-12-01

The very rough ridge sea ice accounts for significant percentage of total ice areas and even larger percentage of total volume. The commonly used Radar altimeter surface detection techniques are empirical in nature and work well only over level/smooth sea ice. Rough sea ice surfaces can modify the return waveforms, resulting in significant Electromagnetic (EM) bias in the estimated surface elevations, and thus large errors in the ice thickness retrievals. To understand and quantify such sea ice surface roughness effects, a combined EM rough surface and volume scattering model was developed to simulate radar returns from the rough sea ice `layer cake' structure. A waveform matching technique was also developed to fit observed waveforms to a physically-based waveform model and subsequently correct the roughness induced EM bias in the estimated freeboard. This new EM Bias Corrected (EMBC) algorithm was able to better retrieve surface elevations and estimate the surface roughness parameter simultaneously. In situ data from multi-instrument airborne and ground campaigns were used to validate the ice thickness and surface roughness retrievals. For the surface roughness retrievals, we applied this EMBC algorithm to co-incident LiDAR/Radar measurements collected during a Cryosat-2 under-flight by the NASA IceBridge missions. Results show that not only does the waveform model fit very well to the measured radar waveform, but also the roughness parameters derived independently from the LiDAR and radar data agree very well for both level and deformed sea ice. For sea ice thickness retrievals, validation based on in-situ data from the coordinated CRREL/NRL field campaign demonstrates that the physically-based EMBC algorithm performs fundamentally better than the empirical algorithm over very rough deformed sea ice, suggesting that sea ice surface roughness effects can be modeled and corrected based solely on the radar return waveforms.

Measuring the Ice Floe Sizes of the Lake Akkeshi Broken by 2011 Tohoku Pacific-Coast Earthquake

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abe, T.; Yoshikawa, Y.

2012-12-01

Water level fluctuations in an open sea can sometimes cause large oscillations of water level in partially enclosed bodies of water such as lakes and bays. In cold and snowy regions, flooding caused by water level fluctuation and scattering of ice floes can occur due to these secondary undulation of tide, which little studies have assessed. The tsunami caused by 2011 Tohoku Pacific-Coast Earthquake reached the coast of Hokkaido, Japan. This tsunami broke up the ice on an unprecedented scale in the Lake Akkeshi, which is connected with Akkeshi Bay. Also, the intermittent tsunami intrusion caused a serious damage to local oyster fishery. On the other hand, lake ice was not broken in other lakes near the coast lines unconnected to the open sea. Therefore, in the Lake Akkeshi, the main cause of the ice breakup is thought to have been the tsunami intrusion. In this study, the sizes of floating lake ice were measured to clarify the effect of the tsunami and the water level fluctuation on lake ice. We used satellite images by WorldView-2 sensor obtained on March 9 and March 12, 2011. We measured the sizes and areas of lake ice by GIS analysis to compare these with the results from other sea ice size measurement and then attempted to clarify the difference in sizes from ice formed in sea ice zones. Firstly, we measured the area of lake ice formed before the tsunami intrusions. From the photograph obtained on March 12, we extracted the contours of ice floes formed by the tsunami. Based on the contours, we measured the areas and diameter d of floes. In the photograph obtained on March 9, the area of lake ice was estimated as about 15 km2. The figure shows a cumulative number distribution of floe diameter d on March 12. It is noticed from the figure that the graph is almost linear for the d between 8m and 20m. In other words, this means for this range N(d) behaves like d-α; that is, the floe size distribution is basically self-similar. Note that the value α=3.0 is

Evaluation of Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Simulated by AOMIP Models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Mark; Proshutinsky, Andrey; Aksenov, Yevgeny; Nguyen, An T.; Lindsay, Ron; Haas, Christian; Zhang, Jinlun; Diansky, Nimolay; Kwok, Ron; Maslowski, Wieslaw;

A Decade of Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Change from Airborne and Satellite Altimetry (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Farrell, S. L.; Richter-Menge, J.; Kurtz, N. T.; McAdoo, D. C.; Newman, T.; Zwally, H.; Ruth, J.

2013-12-01

Altimeters on both airborne and satellite platforms provide direct measurements of sea ice freeboard from which sea ice thickness may be calculated. Satellite altimetry observations of Arctic sea ice from ICESat and CryoSat-2 indicate a significant decline in ice thickness, and volume, over the last decade. During this time the ice pack has experienced a rapid change in its composition, transitioning from predominantly thick, multi-year ice to thinner, increasingly seasonal ice. We will discuss the regional trends in ice thickness derived from ICESat and IceBridge altimetry between 2003 and 2013, contrasting observations of the multi-year ice pack with seasonal ice zones. ICESat ceased operation in 2009, and the final, reprocessed data set became available recently. We extend our analysis to April 2013 using data from the IceBridge airborne mission, which commenced operations in 2009. We describe our current efforts to more accurately convert from freeboard to ice thickness, with a modified methodology that corrects for range errors, instrument biases, and includes an enhanced treatment of snow depth, with respect to ice type. With the planned launch by NASA of ICESat-2 in 2016 we can expect continuity of the sea ice thickness time series through the end of this decade. Data from the ICESat-2 mission, together with ongoing observations from CryoSat-2, will allow us to understand both the decadal trends and inter-annual variability in the Arctic sea ice thickness record. We briefly present the status of planned ICESat-2 sea ice data products, and demonstrate the utility of micro-pulse, photon-counting laser altimetry over sea ice.

Statistical Mechanics and the Climatology of the Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wettlaufer, John; Toppaladoddi, Srikanth

We study the seasonal changes in the thickness distribution of Arctic sea ice, g (h) , under climate forcing. Our analytical and numerical approach is based on a Fokker-Planck equation for g (h) , in which the thermodynamic growth growth rates are determined using observed climatology. In particular, the Fokker-Planck equation is coupled to an observationally consistent thermodynamic model. We find that due to the combined effects of thermodynamics and mechanics, g (h) spreads during winter and contracts during summer. This behavior is in agreement with recent satellite observations from CryoSat-2. Because g (h) is a probability density function, we quantify all of the key moments (e.g., mean thickness, fraction of thin/thick ice, mean albedo, relaxation time scales) as greenhouse-gas radiative forcing, ΔF0 , increases. The mean ice thickness decays exponentially with ΔF0 , but much slower than do solely thermodynamic models. This exhibits the crucial role that ice mechanics plays in maintaining the ice cover, by redistributing thin ice to thick ice-far more rapidly than can thermal growth alone. NASA Grant NNH13ZDA001N-CRYO and Swedish Research Council Grant No. 638-2013-9243.

Asynchronous ice lobe retreat and glacial Lake Bascom: Deglaciation of the Hoosic and Vermont valleys, southwestern Vermont

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Small, E.; Desimone, D.

Deglaciation of the Hoosic River drainage basin in southwestern Vermont was more complex than previously described. Detailed surficial mapping, stratigraphic relationships, and terrace levels/delta elevations reveal new details in the chronology of glacial Lake Bascom: (1) a pre-Wisconsinan proglacial lake was present in a similar position to Lake Bascom as ice advanced: (2) the northern margin of 275m (900 ft) glacial Lake Bascom extended 10 km up the Vermont Valley; (3) the 215m (705 ft) Bascom level was stable and long lived; (4) intermediate water planes existed between 215m and 190m (625 ft) levels; and (5) a separate ice tonguemore » existed in Shaftsbury Hollow damming a small glacial lake, here named glacial Lake Emmons. This information is used to correlate ice margins to different lake levels. Distance of ice margin retreat during a lake level can be measured. Lake levels are then used as control points on a Lake Bascom relative time line to compare rate of retreat of different ice tongues. Correlation of ice margins to Bascom levels indicates ice retreat was asynchronous between nearby tongues in southwestern Vermont. The Vermont Valley ice tongue retreated between two and four times faster than the Hoosic Valley tongue during the Bascom 275m level. Rate of retreat of the Vermont Valley tongue slowed to one-half of the Hoosic tongue during the 215m--190m lake levels. Factors responsible for varying rates of retreat are subglacial bedrock gradient, proximity to the Hudson-Champlain lobe, and the presence of absence of a calving margins. Asynchronous retreat produced splayed ice margins in southwestern Vermont. Findings from this study do not support the model of parallel, synchronous retreat proposed by many workers for this region.« less

Change in Ice Thaw Dates for Selected U.S. Lakes, 1905-2015

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This figure shows the change in the ice-off date, or date of ice thawing and breakup, for 14 U.S. lakes during the period from 1905 to 2015. All of the lakes have red circles with negative numbers, which represent earlier thaw dates. Larger circles indicate larger changes. For more information: www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators

Towards automated mapping of lake ice using RADARSAT-2 and simulated RCM compact polarimetric data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duguay, Claude

2016-04-01

The Canadian Ice Service (CIS) produces a weekly ice fraction product (a text file with a single lake-wide ice fraction value, in tenth, estimated for about 140 large lakes across Canada and northern United States) created from the visual interpretation of RADARSAT-2 ScanSAR dual-polarization (HH and HV) imagery, complemented by optical satellite imagery (AVHRR, MODIS and VIIRS). The weekly ice product is generated in support of the Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC) needs for lake ice coverage in their operational numerical weather prediction model. CIS is interested in moving from its current (manual) way of generating the ice fraction product to a largely automated process. With support from the Canadian Space Agency, a project was recently initiated to assess the potential of polarimetric SAR data for lake ice cover mapping in light of the upcoming RADARSAT Constellation Mission (to be launched in 2018). The main objectives of the project are to evaluate: 1) state-of-the-art image segmentation algorithms and 2) RADARSAT-2 polarimetric and simulated RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) compact polarimetric SAR data for ice/open water discrimination. The goal is to identify the best segmentation algorithm and non-polarimetric/polarimetric parameters for automated lake ice monitoring at CIS. In this talk, we will present the background and context of the study as well as initial results from the analysis of RADARSAT-2 Standard Quad-Pol data acquired during the break-up and freeze-up periods of 2015 on Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories.

Supraglacial Lakes in the Percolation Zone of the Western Greenland Ice Sheet: Formation and Development using Operation IceBridge Snow Radar and ATM (2009-2014)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, C.; Howat, I. M.; de la Peña, S.

2015-12-01

Surface meltwater lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet have appeared at higher elevations, extending well into the percolation zone, under recent warming, with the largest expansion occurring in the western Greenland Ice Sheet. The conditions that allow lakes to form atop firn are poorly constrained, but the formation of new lakes imply changes in the permeability of the firn at high elevations, promoting meltwater runoff. We explore the formation and evolution of new surface lakes in this region above 1500 meters, using a combination of satellite imagery and repeat Snow (2-6.5 GHz) radar echograms and LIDAR measurements from NASA's Operation IceBridge of 2009-2014. We identify conditions for surface lake formation at their farthest inland extent and suggest behaviors of persistence and lake drainage are due to differences in regional ice dynamics.

Second-Year Results from the Circumarctic Lakes Observation Network (CALON) Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hinkel, K. M.; Arp, C. D.; Beck, R. A.; Eisner, W. R.; Frey, K. E.; Gaglioti, B.; Grosse, G.; Jones, B. M.; Kim, C.; Lenters, J. D.; Liu, H.; Townsend-Small, A.

2013-12-01

Beginning in April 2012, over 55 lakes in northern Alaska were instrumented as the initial phase of CALON, a project designed to document landscape-scale variability in physical and biogeochemical processes of Arctic lakes developed atop permafrost. The current network has nine observation nodes along two latitudinal transects that extend from the Arctic Ocean south 200 km to the foothills of the Brooks Range. At each node, six representative lakes of differing area and depth were instrumented at different intensity levels, and a suite of instruments were deployed to collect field measurements on lake physiochemistry, lake-surface and terrestrial climatology, and lake bed and permafrost temperature. Each April, sensors measuring water temperature and water depth are deployed through the ice and water samples are collected. Sensors are downloaded from lakes and meteorological stations in August, recording a timeline of lake regimes and events from ice decay to the summertime energy and water balance. In general, lake ice thickness increased with latitude. In 2012, ice on deeper (>2 m) lakes was about 1.4 m thick in the Arctic Foothills and 1.7 m thick near the Arctic Ocean coast. Lake ice thickness was about 20 cm thicker in winter 2013 although winter temperatures were several degrees warmer than the previous year; this is likely due to a thinner snow cover in 2013. Lake ice elevations agree with this general trend, showing higher absolute elevation in April 2013 compared to 2012 for most of the surveyed lakes. Regionally, ice-off occurs 2-4 weeks later on lakes near the coast, although there is significant inter-lake variability related to lake depth. Following ice-off, rapid lake warming occurs and water temperature varies synchronously in response to synoptic weather variations and associated changes in net radiation and turbulent heat fluxes. Average mid-summer (July) lake temperatures spanned a relatively wide range in 2012 from 7°C to 18°C, with higher

Arctic sea ice thickness loss determined using subsurface, aircraft, and satellite observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindsay, R.; Schweiger, A.

2015-02-01

Sea ice thickness is a fundamental climate state variable that provides an integrated measure of changes in the high-latitude energy balance. However, observations of mean ice thickness have been sparse in time and space, making the construction of observation-based time series difficult. Moreover, different groups use a variety of methods and processing procedures to measure ice thickness, and each observational source likely has different and poorly characterized measurement and sampling errors. Observational sources used in this study include upward-looking sonars mounted on submarines or moorings, electromagnetic sensors on helicopters or aircraft, and lidar or radar altimeters on airplanes or satellites. Here we use a curve-fitting approach to determine the large-scale spatial and temporal variability of the ice thickness as well as the mean differences between the observation systems, using over 3000 estimates of the ice thickness. The thickness estimates are measured over spatial scales of approximately 50 km or time scales of 1 month, and the primary time period analyzed is 2000-2012 when the modern mix of observations is available. Good agreement is found between five of the systems, within 0.15 m, while systematic differences of up to 0.5 m are found for three others compared to the five. The trend in annual mean ice thickness over the Arctic Basin is -0.58 ± 0.07 m decade-1 over the period 2000-2012. Applying our method to the period 1975-2012 for the central Arctic Basin where we have sufficient data (the SCICEX box), we find that the annual mean ice thickness has decreased from 3.59 m in 1975 to 1.25 m in 2012, a 65% reduction. This is nearly double the 36% decline reported by an earlier study. These results provide additional direct observational evidence of substantial sea ice losses found in model analyses.

Arctic sea ice thickness loss determined using subsurface, aircraft, and satellite observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindsay, R.; Schweiger, A.

2014-08-01

Sea ice thickness is a fundamental climate state variable that provides an integrated measure of changes in the high-latitude energy balance. However, observations of ice thickness have been sparse in time and space making the construction of observation-based time series difficult. Moreover, different groups use a variety of methods and processing procedures to measure ice thickness and each observational source likely has different and poorly characterized measurement and sampling biases. Observational sources include upward looking sonars mounted on submarines or moorings, electromagnetic sensors on helicopters or aircraft, and lidar or radar altimeters on airplanes or satellites. Here we use a curve-fitting approach to evaluate the systematic differences between eight different observation systems in the Arctic Basin. The approach determines the large-scale spatial and temporal variability of the ice thickness as well as the mean differences between the observation systems using over 3000 estimates of the ice thickness. The thickness estimates are measured over spatial scales of approximately 50 km or time scales of 1 month and the primary time period analyzed is 2000-2013 when the modern mix of observations is available. Good agreement is found between five of the systems, within 0.15 m, while systematic differences of up to 0.5 m are found for three others compared to the five. The trend in annual mean ice thickness over the Arctic Basin is -0.58 ± 0.07 m decade-1 over the period 2000-2013, while the annual mean ice thickness for the central Arctic Basin alone (the SCICEX Box) has decreased from 3.45 m in 1975 to 1.11 m in 2013, a 68% reduction. This is nearly double the 36% decline reported by an earlier study. These results provide additional direct observational confirmation of substantial sea ice losses found in model analyses.

Carbon and hydrogen isotopic systematics of dissolved methane in small seasonally ice-covered lakes near the margin of the Greenland ice sheet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cadieux, S. B.; White, J. R.; Pratt, L. M.; Peng, Y.; Young, S. A.

2013-12-01

Northern lakes contribute from 6-16% of annual methane inputs to Earth's atmosphere, yet little is known about the seasonal biogeochemistry of CH4 cycling, particularly for lakes in the Arctic. Studies during ice-free conditions have been conducted in Alaskan, Swedish and Siberian lakes. However, there is little information on CH4 cycling under ice-covered conditions, and few stable isotopic measurements, which can help elucidate production and consumption pathways. In order to better understand methane dynamics of ice-covered Arctic lakes, 4 small lakes (surface area <1 km2) within a narrow valley extending from the Russells Glacier to Søndre Strømfjord in Southwestern Greenland were examined during summer stratification and winter ice-cover. Lakes in the study area are ice-covered from mid-September to mid-June. In both seasons, variations in the concentrations and isotopic composition of methane with depth were related to redox fluctuations. During late winter under~2 m of ice, the entire water column was anoxic with wide variation in methane concentrationsand isotopic composition from lake to lake. In three of the lakes, CH4 concentrations and δ13C were relatively stable over the depth of the water column, averaging from 120 to 480μM, with δ13CH4 values from -56‰ to -66‰, respectively. Methane concentrations in the other lake increased with depth from <1 μM below the ice to 800 μM at the sediment/water interface, while δ13C decreased by 30‰ from -30‰ to -70‰ over this depth. In all the lakes, δ13C of sediment porewater was lighter than the overlying water by at least 10‰. The δD-CH4 in the water column ranged from -370‰ to -50‰, exhibiting covariance with δ13C consistent with significant methanotrophic activity. In the sediment, δD-CH4 values ranged from -330‰ to -275‰, and were inversely correlated with δ13C. We will present detailed information on redox dynamics as a controlling factor in methane cycling, and explore the

Perennial Antarctic lake ice: an oasis for life in a polar desert

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Priscu, J. C.; Fritsen, C. H.; Adams, E. E.; Giovannoni, S. J.; Paerl, H. W.; McKay, C. P.; Doran, P. T.; Gordon, D. A.; Lanoil, B. D.; Pinckney, J. L.

1998-01-01

The permanent ice covers of Antarctic lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys develop liquid water inclusions in response to solar heating of internal aeolian-derived sediments. The ice sediment particles serve as nutrient (inorganic and organic)-enriched microzones for the establishment of a physiologically and ecologically complex microbial consortium capable of contemporaneous photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, and decomposition. The consortium is capable of physically and chemically establishing and modifying a relatively nutrient- and organic matter-enriched microbial "oasis" embedded in the lake ice cover.

Perennial Antarctic lake ice: an oasis for life in a polar desert.

PubMed

Priscu, J C; Fritsen, C H; Adams, E E; Giovannoni, S J; Paerl, H W; McKay, C P; Doran, P T; Gordon, D A; Lanoil, B D; Pinckney, J L

1998-06-26

The permanent ice covers of Antarctic lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys develop liquid water inclusions in response to solar heating of internal aeolian-derived sediments. The ice sediment particles serve as nutrient (inorganic and organic)-enriched microzones for the establishment of a physiologically and ecologically complex microbial consortium capable of contemporaneous photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, and decomposition. The consortium is capable of physically and chemically establishing and modifying a relatively nutrient- and organic matter-enriched microbial "oasis" embedded in the lake ice cover.

Climatology of the Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Distribution as a Stochastic Process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toppaladoddi, S.; Wettlaufer, J. S.

2016-12-01

We study the seasonal changes in the thickness distribution of Arctic sea ice, g(h), under climate forcing. Our analytical and numerical approach is based on a Fokker-Planck equation for g(h) (Toppaladoddi & Wettlaufer Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 148501, 2015), in which the thermodynamic growth rates are determined using observed climatology. In particular, the Fokker-Planck equation is coupled to the observationally consistent thermodynamic model of Eisenman & Wettlaufer (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106, pp. 28-32, 2009). We find that due to the combined effects of thermodynamics and mechanics, g(h) spreads during winter and contracts during summer. This behavior is in agreement with recent satellite observations from CryoSat-2 (Kwok & Cunningham, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 373, 20140157, 2015). Because g(h) is a probability density function, we quantify all of the key moments (e.g., mean thickness, fraction of thin/thick ice, mean albedo, relaxation time scales) as greenhouse-gas radiative forcing, ΔF0, increases. The mean ice thickness decays exponentially with ΔF0, but much slower than do solely thermodynamic models. This exhibits the crucial role that ice mechanics plays in maintaining the ice cover, by redistributing thin ice to thick ice-far more rapidly than can thermal growth alone.

Statistical Mechanics and the Climatology of the Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toppaladoddi, Srikanth; Wettlaufer, J. S.

2017-05-01

We study the seasonal changes in the thickness distribution of Arctic sea ice, g( h), under climate forcing. Our analytical and numerical approach is based on a Fokker-Planck equation for g( h) (Toppaladoddi and Wettlaufer in Phys Rev Lett 115(14):148501, 2015), in which the thermodynamic growth rates are determined using observed climatology. In particular, the Fokker-Planck equation is coupled to the observationally consistent thermodynamic model of Eisenman and Wettlaufer (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:28-32, 2009). We find that due to the combined effects of thermodynamics and mechanics, g( h) spreads during winter and contracts during summer. This behavior is in agreement with recent satellite observations from CryoSat-2 (Kwok and Cunningham in Philos Trans R Soc A 373(2045):20140157, 2015). Because g( h) is a probability density function, we quantify all of the key moments (e.g., mean thickness, fraction of thin/thick ice, mean albedo, relaxation time scales) as greenhouse-gas radiative forcing, Δ F_0, increases. The mean ice thickness decays exponentially with Δ F_0, but much slower than do solely thermodynamic models. This exhibits the crucial role that ice mechanics plays in maintaining the ice cover, by redistributing thin ice to thick ice-far more rapidly than can thermal growth alone.

Comparison of Envisat ASAR and Submarine Sea Ice Thickness Statistics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hughes, Nicolas E.; Rodrigues, Joao; Wadhams, Peter

2010-12-01

In April 2004 and March 2007 the Royal Navy sent the submarine HMS Tireless on missions into the Arctic Ocean. On both occasions the submarine traversed the area of remaining multi-year sea ice at latitude 85°N north of Greenland acquiring ice draft measurements using upward-looking sonar. The area is outside of the "Gore Box" used for the release of U.S. Submarine data and was beyond the latitude range of the radar altimeter satellites available at that time. This paper compares ice draft statistics with contemporary data from Envisat ASAR to evaluate the level of correlation between SAR backscatter and sea ice thickness. The decline in sea ice volume over the past decade has predominantly been caused by the loss of old multi-year ice due to increased outflow through Fram Strait. Although Tireless found little decrease in the overall ice thickness between 2004 and 2007, the ice rheology was significantly changed with greatly increased quantities of first- and second-year ice in 2007 than had been encountered in 2004. These are evident in changes to the ice draft probability density functions (PDFs) and the ice appearance as seen by the SAR, and presented here.

Geodynamic Modeling of Planetary Ice-Oceans: Evolution of Ice-Shell Thickness in Convecting Two-Phase Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allu Peddinti, D.; McNamara, A. K.

2016-12-01

Along with the newly unveiled icy surface of Pluto, several icy planetary bodies show indications of an active surface perhaps underlain by liquid oceans of some size. This augments the interest to explore the evolution of an ice-ocean system and its surface implications. The geologically young surface of the Jovian moon Europa lends much speculation to variations in ice-shell thickness over time. Along with the observed surface features, it suggests the possibility of episodic convection and conduction within the ice-shell as it evolved. What factors would control the growth of the ice-shell as it forms? If and how would those factors determine the thickness of the ice-shell and consequently the heat transfer? Would parameters such as tidal heating or initial temperature affect how the ice-shell grows and to what significance? We perform numerical experiments using geodynamical models of the two-phase ice-water system to study the evolution of planetary ice-oceans such as that of Europa. The models evolve self-consistently from an initial liquid ocean as it cools with time. The effects of presence, absence and magnitude of tidal heating on ice-shell thickness are studied in different models. The vigor of convection changes as the ice-shell continues to thicken. Initial modeling results track changes in the growth rate of the ice-shell as the vigor of the convection changes. The magnitude and temporal location of the rate change varies with different properties of tidal heating and values of initial temperature. A comparative study of models is presented to demonstrate how as the ice-shell is forming, its growth rate and convection are affected by processes such as tidal heating.

Near-shore talik development beneath shallow water in expanding thermokarst lakes, Old Crow Flats, Yukon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roy-Leveillee, Pascale; Burn, Christopher R.

2017-05-01

It is generally assumed that permafrost is preserved beneath shallow lakes and ponds in the Western North American Arctic where water depth is less than about two thirds of the late-winter lake ice thickness. Here we present field observations of talik development beneath water as shallow as 0.2 m despite a lake ice thickness of 1.5 m, in Old Crow Flats (OCF), YT. Conditions leading to the initiation and development of taliks beneath shallow water were investigated with field measurements of shore erosion rates, bathymetry, ice thickness, snow accumulation, and lake bottom temperature near the shores of two expanding lakes in OCF. The sensitivity of talik development to variations in lake bottom thermal regime was then investigated numerically. Where ice reached the lake bottom, talik development was controlled by the ratio of freezing degree days to thawing degree days at the lake bottom (FDDlb/TDDlb). In some cases, spatial variations in on-ice snow depth had a minimal effect on annual mean lake bottom temperature (Tlb) but caused sufficient variations in FDDlb/TDDlb to influence talik development. Where Tlb was close to but greater than 0°C simulations indicated that the thermal offset allowed permafrost aggradation to occur under certain conditions, resulting in irregular near-shore talik geometries. The results highlight the sensitivity of permafrost to small changes in lake bottom thermal conditions where the water column freezes through in early winter and indicate the occurrence of permafrost degradation beneath very shallow water in the near-shore zone of Arctic ponds and lakes.

Glacial Lake Musselshell: Late Wisconsin slackwater on the Laurentide ice margin in central Montana, USA

USGS Publications Warehouse

Davis, N.K.; Locke, W. W.; Pierce, K.L.; Finkel, R.C.

2006-01-01

Cosmogenic surface exposure ages of glacial boulders deposited in ice-marginal Lake Musselshell suggest that the lake existed between 20 and 11.5 ka during the Late Wisconsin glacial stage (MIS 2), rather than during the Late Illinoian stage (MIS 6) as traditionally thought. The altitude of the highest ice-rafted boulders and the lowest passes on the modern divide indicate that glacial lake water in the Musselshell River basin reached at least 920-930 m above sea level and generally remained below 940 m. Exposures of rhythmically bedded silt and fine sand indicate that Lake Musselshell is best described as a slackwater system, in which the ice-dammed Missouri and Musselshell Rivers rose and fell progressively throughout the existence of the lake rather than establishing a lake surface with a stable elevation. The absence of varves, deltas and shorelines also implies an unstable lake. The changing volume of the lake implies that the Laurentide ice sheet was not stable at its southernmost position in central Montana. A continuous sequence of alternating slackwater lake sediment and lacustrine sheetflood deposits indicates that at least three advances of the Laurentide ice sheet occurred in central Montana between 20 and 11.5 ka. Between each advance, it appears that Lake Musselshell drained to the north and formed two outlet channels that are now occupied by extremely underfit streams. A third outlet formed when the water in Lake Musselshell fully breached the Larb Hills, resulting in the final drainage of the lake. The channel through the Larb Hills is now occupied by the Missouri River, implying that the present Missouri River channel east of the Musselshell River confluence was not created until the Late Wisconsin, possibly as late as 11.5 ka. ?? 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Thick or Thin Ice Shell on Europa? Artist Concept

NASA Image and Video Library

2007-12-13

Scientists are all but certain that Europa has an ocean underneath its icy surface, but they do not know how thick this ice might be. This artist concept illustrates two possible cut-away views through Europa ice shell.

Ice Roughness and Thickness Evolution on a Swept NACA 0012 Airfoil

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McClain, Stephen T.; Vargas, Mario; Tsao, Jen-Ching

2017-01-01

Several recent studies have been performed in the Icing Research Tunnel (IRT) at NASA Glenn Research Center focusing on the evolution, spatial variations, and proper scaling of ice roughness on airfoils without sweep exposed to icing conditions employed in classical roughness studies. For this study, experiments were performed in the IRT to investigate the ice roughness and thickness evolution on a 91.44-cm (36-in.) chord NACA 0012 airfoil, swept at 30-deg with 0deg angle of attack, and exposed to both Appendix C and Appendix O (SLD) icing conditions. The ice accretion event times used in the study were less than the time required to form substantially three-dimensional structures, such as scallops, on the airfoil surface. Following each ice accretion event, the iced airfoils were scanned using a ROMER Absolute Arm laser-scanning system. The resulting point clouds were then analyzed using the self-organizing map approach of McClain and Kreeger to determine the spatial roughness variations along the surfaces of the iced airfoils. The resulting measurements demonstrate linearly increasing roughness and thickness parameters with ice accretion time. Further, when compared to dimensionless or scaled results from unswept airfoil investigations, the results of this investigation indicate that the mechanisms for early stage roughness and thickness formation on swept wings are similar to those for unswept wings.

Ridging and strength in modeling the thickness distribution of Arctic sea ice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flato, Gregory M.; Hibler, William D.

1995-09-01

A theory describing evolution of the ice thickness distribution (the probability density of ice thickness) was proposed by Thorndike et al. (1975) and has been used in several sea ice models. The advantage of this theory over the widely used two-level formulation is that it treats ridging explicitly as a redistribution of ice thickness, and ice strength as a function of energy losses incurred by ridge formation. However, the parameterization of these processes remains rather speculative and largely untested, and so our purpose here is to explore these parameterizations using a numerical model based on this theory. The model uses a 160-km resolution grid of the Arctic and 7 years of observed atmospheric forcing data (1979-1985). Monthly oceanic heat flux and current fields are obtained from a 40-km resolution coupled ice-ocean model run separately with the same forcing. By requiring the computed monthly mean ice drift to have the same magnitude as observed buoy drift, we estimate the primary strength parameter: the ratio of total to potential energy change during ridging. This ratio depends on the value of other parameters; however, the standard case has a ratio of 17 which is within the range estimated by Hopkins (1994) in simulations of individual ridging events. The effects of ridge redistribution and shear ridging parameters are illustrated by a series of sensitivity studies and comparisons between observed and modeled ice thickness distributions and ridge statistics. In addition, these comparisons highlight the following shortcomings of the thickness distribution theory as it is presently implemented: first, the process of first-year to multiyear ridge consolidation is ignored; and second, the observed preferential melt of thick ridged ice is not reproduced.

Hypervelocity impacts into ice-topped layered targets: Investigating the effects of ice crust thickness and subsurface density on crater morphology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harriss, Kathryn H.; Burchell, Mark J.

2017-07-01

Many bodies in the outer solar system are theorized to have an ice shell with a different subsurface material below, be it chondritic, regolith, or a subsurface ocean. This layering can have a significant influence on the morphology of impact craters. Accordingly, we have undertaken laboratory hypervelocity impact experiments on a range of multilayered targets, with interiors of water, sand, and basalt. Impact experiments were undertaken using impact speeds in the range of 0.8-5.3 km s-1, a 1.5 mm Al ball bearing projectile, and an impact incidence of 45°. The surface ice crust had a thickness between 5 and 50 mm, i.e., some 3-30 times the projectile diameter. The thickness of the ice crust as well as the nature of the subsurface layer (liquid, well consolidated, etc.) have a marked effect on the morphology of the resulting impact crater, with thicker ice producing a larger crater diameter (at a given impact velocity), and the crater diameter scaling with impact speed to the power 0.72 for semi-infinite ice, but with 0.37 for thin ice. The density of the subsurface material changes the structure of the crater, with flat crater floors if there is a dense, well-consolidated subsurface layer (basalt) or steep, narrow craters if there is a less cohesive subsurface (sand). The associated faulting in the ice surface is also dependent on ice thickness and the substrate material. We find that the ice layer (in impacts at 5 km s-1) is effectively semi-infinite if its thickness is more than 15.5 times the projectile diameter. Below this, the crater diameter is reduced by 4% for each reduction in ice layer thickness equal to the impactor diameter. Crater depth is also affected. In the ice thickness region, 7-15.5 times the projectile diameter, the crater shape in the ice is modified even when the subsurface layer is not penetrated. For ice thicknesses, <7 times the projectile diameter, the ice layer is breached, but the nature of the resulting crater depends heavily on the

Ultra-low rare earth element content in accreted ice from sub-glacial Lake Vostok, Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gabrielli, Paolo; Planchon, Frederic; Barbante, Carlo; Boutron, Claude F.; Petit, Jean Robert; Bulat, Sergey; Hong, Sungmin; Cozzi, Giulio; Cescon, Paolo

2009-10-01

This paper reports the first rare earth element (REE) concentrations in accreted ice refrozen from sub-glacial Lake Vostok (East Antarctica). REE were determined in various sections of the Vostok ice core in order to geochemically characterize its impurities. Samples were obtained from accreted ice and, for comparison, from the upper glacier ice of atmospheric origin (undisturbed, disturbed and glacial flour ice). REE concentrations ranged between 0.8-56 pg g -1 for Ce and 0.0035-0.24 pg g -1 for Lu in glacier ice, and between <0.1-24 pg g -1 for Ce and <0.0004-0.02 pg g -1 for Lu in accreted ice. Interestingly, the REE concentrations in the upper accreted ice (AC 1; characterized by visible aggregates containing a mixture of very fine terrigenous particles) and in the deeper accreted ice (AC 2; characterized by transparent ice) are lower than those in fresh water and seawater, respectively. We suggest that such ultra-low concentrations are unlikely to be representative of the real REE content in Lake Vostok, but instead may reflect phase exclusion processes occurring at the ice/water interface during refreezing. In particular, the uneven spatial distribution (on the order of a few cm) and the large range of REE concentrations observed in AC 1 are consistent with the occurrence/absence of the aggregates in adjacent ice, and point to the presence of solid-phase concentration/exclusion processes occurring within separate pockets of frazil ice during AC 1 formation. Interestingly, if the LREE enrichment found in AC 1 was not produced by chemical fractionation occurring in Lake Vostok water, this may reflect a contribution of bedrock material, possibly in combination with aeolian dust released into the lake by melting of the glacier ice. Collectively, this valuable information provides new insight into the accreted ice formation processes, the bedrock geology of East Antarctica as well as the water chemistry and circulation of Lake Vostok.

Ultra-low rare earth element content in accreted ice from sub-glacial Lake Vostok, Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barbante, C.; Gabrielli, P.; Turetta, C.; Planchon, F.; Boutron, C.; Petit, J. R.; Bulat, S.; Hong, S.; Cozzi, G.; Cescon, P.

2009-12-01

We report the first rare earth element (REE) concentrations in accreted ice refrozen from sub-glacial Lake Vostok (East Antarctica). REE were determined in various sections of the Vostok ice core in order to geochemically characterize its impurities. Samples were obtained from accreted ice and, for comparison, from the upper glacier ice of atmospheric origin (undisturbed, disturbed and glacial flour ice). REE concentrations ranged between 0.8-56 pg g-1 for Ce and 0.0035- 0.24 pg g-1 for Lu in glacier ice, and between <0.1-24 pg g-1 for Ce and <0.0004-0.02 pg g-1 for Lu in accreted ice. Interestingly, the REE concentrations in the upper accreted ice (AC1;characterized by visible aggregates containing a mixture of very fine terrigenous particles) and in the deeper accreted ice (AC2; characterized by transparent ice) are lower than those in fresh water and seawater, respectively. We suggest that such ultra-low concentrations are unlikely to be representative of the real REE content in Lake Vostok, but instead may reflect phase exclusion processes occurring at the ice/water interface during refreezing. In particular, the uneven spatial distribution (on the order of a few cm) and the large range of REE concentrations observed in AC1 are consistent with the occurrence/absence of the aggregates in adjacent ice, and point to the presence of solid-phase concentration/exclusion processes occurring within separate pockets of frazil ice during AC1 formation. Interestingly, if the LREE enrichment found in AC1 was not produced by chemical fractionation occurring in Lake Vostok water, this may reflect a contribution of bedrock material, possibly in combination with aeolian dust released into the lake by melting of the glacier ice. Collectively, this valuable information provides new insight into the accreted ice formation processes, the bedrock geology of East Antarctica as well as the water chemistry and circulation of Lake Vostok.

Two new ways of mapping sea ice thickness using ocean waves

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wadhams, P.

2010-12-01

TWO NEW METHODS OF MAPPING SEA ICE THICKNESS USING OCEAN WAVES. P. Wadhams (1,2), Martin Doble (1,2) and F. Parmiggiani (3) (1) Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK. (2) Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 06234 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France (2) ISAC-CNR, Bologna, Italy Two new methods of mapping ice thickness have been recently developed and tested, both making use of the dispersion relation of ocean waves in ice of radically different types. In frazil-pancake ice, a young ice type in which cakes less than 5 m across float in a suspension of individual ice crystals, the propagation of waves has been successfully modelled by treating the ice layer as a highly viscous fluid. The model predicts a shortening of wavelengths within the ice. Two-dimensional Fourier analysis of successive SAR subscenes to track the directional spectrum of a wave field as it enters an ice edge shows that waves do indeed shorten within the ice, and the change has been successfully used to predict the thickness of the frazil-pancake layer. Concurrent shipborne sampling in the Antarctic has shown that the method is accurate, and we now propose its use throughout the important frazil-pancake regimes in the world ocean (Antarctic circumpolar ice edge zone, Greenland Sea, Bering Sea and others). A radically different type of dispersion occurs when ocean waves enter the continuous icefields of the central Arctic, when they couple with the elastic ice cover to propagate as a flexural-gravity wave. A two-axis tiltmeter array has been used to measure the resulting change in the dispersion relation for long ocean swell (15-30 s) originating from storms in the Greenland Sea. The dispersion relation is slightly different from swell in the open ocean, so if two such arrays are placed a substantial distance (100s of km) apart and used to observe the changing wave period of arrivals from a given

Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics and the Sea Ice Thickness Distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wettlaufer, John; Toppaladoddi, Srikanth

We use concepts from non-equilibrium statistical physics to transform the original evolution equation for the sea ice thickness distribution g (h) due to Thorndike et al., (1975) into a Fokker-Planck like conservation law. The steady solution is g (h) = calN (q) hqe - h / H , where q and H are expressible in terms of moments over the transition probabilities between thickness categories. The solution exhibits the functional form used in observational fits and shows that for h << 1 , g (h) is controlled by both thermodynamics and mechanics, whereas for h >> 1 only mechanics controls g (h) . Finally, we derive the underlying Langevin equation governing the dynamics of the ice thickness h, from which we predict the observed g (h) . This allows us to demonstrate that the ice thickness field is ergodic. The genericity of our approach provides a framework for studying the geophysical scale structure of the ice pack using methods of broad relevance in statistical mechanics. Swedish Research Council Grant No. 638-2013-9243, NASA Grant NNH13ZDA001N-CRYO and the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research under OCE-1332750 for support.

Ice-dammed lakes reconstruction in the southeastern Scandinavian ice sheet periphery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anisimov, Nikolai

2017-04-01

The study of glacier erosion processes, paleolake dynamics and topographical changes, together give us insight into both localized and broader landscape evolution patterns while also assisting human exploration. After carrying number of paleographic discoveries of North-West of Russia, we've gathered the data requiring generalizing, systemizing, visualizing. Objective: reconstruction of proglacial lakes based on lithostratigraphic and geomorphic analysis using GIS technology. GIS modeling of ice-dammed lakes was done via the ArcGIS Desktop 10 software package. The GIS was used as a means to categorize published, time mapped data and thereby fuse and unify the changes into a single, integrated prototype. Publications on limnologo-glaciological and geomorphological reconstructions of paleotopography and paleolakes north of the Russian plain, along with additional copyrighted and grant-funded GIS studies, together served as resources to authenticate the paleolake contour modeling. A quaternary sediments map and an updated topography map that was designed via semiautomatic vectorization of a topographical map, served as foundations for the electronic shape modeling paleoreconstructions. Based upon preliminary results from publication summaries, and initial data collected when analyzing the maps (quaternary sediments, geomorphological, topographical), the contours and maximum glacial lake rise levels in the southeastern Scandinavian ice sheet periphery, including the levels and contours of their coastline, have been duly identified. Boundary reconstruction of Late Pleistocene lake boundaries have been completed for five sections of the Scandinavian ice sheet: the Molovo-Sheksninskoy, the Belozersko-Kubensky, the Vozhe-Lachsko-Kubensky, the Vazhskoy, and the Severodvinskoy. The territories studied revealed 13 major paleobasins covering an area of more than 1,000 km2, which based upon their position most closely resemble periglacial, intraglacial and postglacial lakes. Of

Ultra-Wideband Radar Measurements of Thickness of Snow Over Sea Ice

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kanagaratnam, P.; Markus, T.; Lytle, V.; Heavey, B.; Jansen, P.; Prescott, G.; Gogineni, S.

2007-01-01

An accurate knowledge of snow thickness and its variability over sea ice is crucial for determining the overall polar heat and freshwater budget, which influences the global climate. Recently, algorithms have been developed to extract snow thicknesses from passive microwave satellite data. However, validation of these data over the large footprint of the passive microwave sensor has been a challenge. The only method used thus far has been with meter sticks during ship cruises. To address this problem, we developed an ultra wideband frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FM-CW) radar to measure snow thickness over sea ice. We made snow-thickness measurements over Antarctic sea ice by operating the radar from a sled during September and October, 2003. We performed radar measurements over 11 stations with varying snow thickness between 4 and 85 cm. We observed excellent agreement between radar estimates of snow thickness with physical measurements, achieving a correlation coefficient of 0.95 and a vertical resolution of about 3 cm.

Climate Change and the Long-term Viability of the World's Busiest Heavy Haul Ice Road

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mullan, D.

2016-12-01

Climate models project that the northern high latitudes will warm at a rate in excess of the global mean. This will pose severe problems for Arctic and sub-Arctic infrastructure dependent on maintaining low temperatures for structural integrity. This is the case for the economically important Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road (TCWR)—the world's busiest heavy haul ice road, spanning 400 km across mostly frozen lakes within the Northwest Territories of Canada. In this study, future climate scenarios are developed for the region using statistical downscaling methods. In addition, changes in lake ice thickness are projected based on historical relationships between measured ice thickness and air temperatures. These projections are used to infer the theoretical operational dates of the TCWR based on weight limits for trucks on the ice. Results across three climate models driven by four RCPs reveal a considerable warming trend over the coming decades. Projected changes in ice thickness reveal a trend towards thinner lake ice and a reduced time window when lake ice is at sufficient thickness to support trucks on the ice road, driven by increasing future temperatures. Given the uncertainties inherent in climate modelling and the resultant projections, caution should be exercised in interpreting the magnitude of these scenarios. More certain is the direction of change, with a clear trend towards winter warming that will reduce the operation time window of the TCWR. This illustrates the need for planners and policymakers to consider future changes in climate when planning annual haulage along the TCWR.

Climate change and the long-term viability of the World's busiest heavy haul ice road

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mullan, Donal; Swindles, Graeme; Patterson, Tim; Galloway, Jennifer; Macumber, Andrew; Falck, Hendrik; Crossley, Laura; Chen, Jie; Pisaric, Michael

2017-08-01

Climate models project that the northern high latitudes will warm at a rate in excess of the global mean. This will pose severe problems for Arctic and sub-Arctic infrastructure dependent on maintaining low temperatures for structural integrity. This is the case for the economically important Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road (TCWR)—the world's busiest heavy haul ice road, spanning 400 km across mostly frozen lakes within the Northwest Territories of Canada. In this study, future climate scenarios are developed for the region using statistical downscaling methods. In addition, changes in lake ice thickness are projected based on historical relationships between measured ice thickness and air temperatures. These projections are used to infer the theoretical operational dates of the TCWR based on weight limits for trucks on the ice. Results across three climate models driven by four RCPs reveal a considerable warming trend over the coming decades. Projected changes in ice thickness reveal a trend towards thinner lake ice and a reduced time window when lake ice is at sufficient thickness to support trucks on the ice road, driven by increasing future temperatures. Given the uncertainties inherent in climate modelling and the resultant projections, caution should be exercised in interpreting the magnitude of these scenarios. More certain is the direction of change, with a clear trend towards winter warming that will reduce the operation time window of the TCWR. This illustrates the need for planners and policymakers to consider future changes in climate when planning annual haulage along the TCWR.

Ground penetrating radar study of a thickness of biogenic sediments in the vicinity of the Czechowskie Lake

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lamparski, Piotr

2014-05-01

The paper present results of investigations, which have made on a biogenic plain in the north-east part of the vicinity of the Czechowskie Lake. The basin of Lake Czechowskie occupies a deep depression located in the immediate hinterland of the maximum range of the Pomeranian Phase ice sheet in the northern part of Poland (Błaszkiewicz 2005). Drillings carried out within the peat plain in the western part of the lake basin indicate that there are relatively diversified lake sediments of up to 12 m in thickness. The ground penetrating radar profiling method (GPR) was used to determine a thickness of biogenic sediments. To tests was used GSS'I SIR SYSTEM-2000™ radar device with two antennae - the high resolution 400 MHz central frequency - for shallow prospecting of the subsurface layers and the low resolution 35 MHz - for determining the shape of the mineral bedrock. Overall, 33 GPR profiles was made all in all more than 3000 meters along and crosswise the longer axis of the biogenic plain. The range of radar penetration was set to 200 ns for 400 MHz antenna and 600 ns for the 35 MHz one, what is the equivalent respectively 4 m and 12,5 m in depth of biogenic sediments thickness. Horizontal scaling was made by GSSI survey wheel device. The thickness of biogenic sediments recognized by GPR reaches 10 meters only using 35 MHz antenna. In the case of the 400 MHz antenna, relatively high conductivity water-saturated peat and gyttia did not allow for the achievement of greater thickness than 3-4 meters testing. In a large part of the profiles was able to see the shape of the mineral bedrock in the form of a former lake basin. Also observed elevations and thresholds in the bedrock. Depth of the mineral deposits forming former lake bottom was confirmed by drillings. This study is a contribution to the Virtual Institute of Integrated Climate and Landscape Evolution Analysis -ICLEA- of the Helmholtz Association. References: Błaszkiewicz M, 2005. Późnoglacjalna i

Sea-Ice Thickness Monitoring from Sensor Equipped Inuit Sleds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodwell, Shane; Jones, Bryn; Wilkinson, Jeremy

2013-04-01

A novel instrumentation package capable of measuring sea-ice thickness autonomously has been designed for long-term deployment upon the dog drawn sleds of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. The device features a range of sensors that have been integrated with an electromagnetic induction device. These include a global positioning system, temperature sensor, tilt meter and accelerometer. Taken together, this system is able to provide accurate (+/-5cm) measurements of ice thickness with spatio-temporal resolution ranging from 1m to 5m every second. Autonomous data transmission capability is provided via GSM, inspired by the fact that many of the coastal communities in Greenland possess modern cell-phone infrastructure, enabling an inexpensive means of data-retrieval. Such data is essential in quantifying the sea-ice mass balance; given that existing satellite based systems are unable to measure ice-thickness directly. Field-campaign results from a prototype device, deployed in the North West of Greenland during three consecutive seasons, have demonstrated successful proof-of-concept when compared to data provided by ice mass balance (IMB) stations provided at fixed positions along the route of the sled. This project highlights not only the use of novel polar technology, but how opportunistic deployment using an existing roving platform (Inuit sledges) can provide economical, yet highly valuable, data for instrumentation development.

An integrated approach to the remote sensing of floating ice

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, W. J.; Ramseier, R. O.; Weeks, W. F.; Gloersen, P.

1976-01-01

Review article on remote sensing applications to glaciology. Ice parameters sensed include: ice cover vs open water, ice thickness, distribution and morphology of ice formations, vertical resolution of ice thickness, ice salinity (percolation and drainage of brine; flushing of ice body with fresh water), first-year ice and multiyear ice, ice growth rate and surface heat flux, divergence of ice packs, snow cover masking ice, behavior of ice shelves, icebergs, lake ice and river ice; time changes. Sensing techniques discussed include: satellite photographic surveys, thermal IR, passive and active microwave studies, microwave radiometry, microwave scatterometry, side-looking radar, and synthetic aperture radar. Remote sensing of large aquatic mammals and operational ice forecasting are also discussed.

Deglaciation of the James Bay Lowlands and Northern Abitibi: Insights on Late-Glacial Ice Readvances and Drainage of Glacial Lake Ojibway

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roy, M.; Veillette, J. J.; Dell'Oste, F.

2008-12-01

Deglaciation in the James Bay region was marked by the scission of the Laurentide ice sheet margin into the Hudson dome to the west and the New-Quebec dome to the east, which subsequently retreated northward, in contact with the waters of glacial Lake Ojibway. Previous work based on air photo-interpretation and field observations indicate that ice retreat in the region was highly dynamic, with the occurrence of at least three ice readvances into the basin of Lake Objiway prior to the final deglaciation, and the incursion of the post- glacial Tyrrell Sea at ~8 ka (Hardy, 1976). Our investigations of stratigraphic sections exposed along the Harricana, Nottaway, Broadback, and Rupert rivers in the lowlands of Quebec indicate that only part of these events are preserved in these sedimentary sequences. The base of the late-glacial sequence generally consists of a carbonate-bearing clayey readvance till that lies on older tills of the last glacial cycle, or truncate Lake Ojibway glaciolacustrine sediments. None of the sections showed more than one till of the three (Cochrane I, Rupert, Cochrane II) readvances documented in the region. Nonetheless, an extensive Ojibway sequence located just south from the lowlands shows three intervals with significant increases in detrital carbonate and coarsening of the varve sequence that can be linked with these late-glacial surges. In the lowlands, the readvance till is commonly capped by a thick sequence of Ojibway varves. The contact between the glaciolacustrine sediments and the overlying Tyrrell Sea marine deposits is marked by a ~50 cm-thick horizon composed at the bottom of thinly laminated reddish and grey silt beds containing abundant rounded clay balls, overlain by coarser silts and fine sands with disseminated clasts. This horizon is here interpreted to reflect the abrupt drainage of Lake Ojibway. Recent radiocarbon dating of mollusks and foraminifers from the uppermost part of this horizon yielded ages of ~7.7 ka and ~8

Ice-Accretion Scaling Using Water-Film Thickness Parameters

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Anderson, David N.; Feo, Alejandro

2003-01-01

Studies were performed at INTA in Spain to determine water-film thickness on a stagnation-point probe inserted in a simulated cloud. The measurements were correlated with non-dimensional parameters describing the flow and the cloud conditions. Icing scaling tests in the NASA Glenn Icing Research Tunnel were then conducted using the Ruff scaling method with the scale velocity found by matching scale and reference values of either the INTA non-dimensional water-film thickness or a Weber number based on that film thickness. For comparison, tests were also performed using the constant drop-size Weber number and the average-velocity methods. The reference and scale models were both aluminum, 61-cm-span, NACA 0012 airfoil sections at 0 deg. AOA. The reference had a 53-cm-chord and the scale, 27 cm (1/2 size). Both models were mounted vertically in the center of the IRT test section. Tests covered a freezing fraction range of 0.28 to 1.0. Rime ice (n = 1.0) tests showed the consistency of the IRT calibration over a range of velocities. At a freezing fraction of 0.76, there was no significant difference in the scale ice shapes produced by the different methods. For freezing fractions of 0.40, 0.52 and 0.61, somewhat better agreement with the reference horn angles was typically achieved with the average-velocity and constant-film thickness methods than when either of the two Weber numbers was matched to the reference value. At a freezing fraction of 0.28, the four methods were judged equal in providing simulations of the reference shape.

Detection of Supra-Glacial Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using MODIS Images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Verin, Gauthier; Picard, Ghislain; Libois, Quentin; Gillet-Chaulet, Fabien; Roux, Antoine

2015-04-01

During melt season, supra-glacial lakes form on the margins of the Greenland ice sheet. Because of their size exceeding several kilometers, and their concentration, they affect surface albedo leading to an amplification of the regional melt. Furthermore, they foster hydro-fracturing that propagate liquid water to the bedrock and therefore enhance the basal lubrication which may affect the ice motion. It is known that Greenland ice sheet has strongly responded to recent global warming. As air temperature increases, melt duration and melt intensity increase and surface melt area extends further inland. These recent changes may play an important role in the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet. In this context, it is essential to better monitor and understand supra-glacial spatio-temporal dynamics in order to better assess future sea level rise. In this study MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) images have been used to detect supra-glacial lakes. The observation site is located on the West margin of the ice sheet, between 65°N and 70°N where the concentration of lake is maximum. The detection is performed by a fully automatic algorithm using images processing techniques introduced by Liang et al. (2012) which can be summarized in three steps: the selection of usable MODIS images, mainly we exclude images with too many clouds. The detection of lake and the automatic correction of false detections. This algorithm is capable to tag each individual lake allowing a survey of all lake geometrical properties over the entire melt season. We observed a large population of supra-glacial lakes over 14 melt seasons, from 2000 to 2013 on an extended area of 70.000 km2. In average, lakes are observed from June 9 ± 8.7 days to September 13 ± 13.9 days, and reach a maximum total area of 699 km2 ± 146 km2. As the melt season progresses, lakes form higher in altitude up to 1800 m above sea level. Results show a very strong inter-annual variability in term of

Carbon trace gases in lake and beaver pond ice near Thompson, Manitoba, Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuhlbusch, Thomas A. J.; Zepp, Richard G.

1999-11-01

Concentrations of CO2, CO, and CH4 were measured in beaver pond and lake ice in April 1996 near Thompson, Manitoba to derive information on possible impacts of ice melting on corresponding atmospheric trace gas concentrations. CH4 concentrations in beaver pond and lake ice ranged between 0.3-150 mmol m-3 and 3.1-56.2 μmol m-3, respectively. The corresponding CO concentrations showed no significant differences between the two lakes. They varied between 50 and 250 μmol m-3. These CO concentrations are some of the highest determined in any aquatic system. The differences in CH4 concentrations between lake and pond can be explained by the differences in production and microbial oxidation rates between the two systems. No explanation can be given for the similar CO concentrations. Supersaturation factors for CO were 660±130 and 630±330, and 65-35000 and 0.6-13 for CH4 in the ice of the beaver pond and Troy Lake, respectively. When digging into the beaver pond ice, a continuous flow of bubbles with 0.32±0.06 vol% CH4, 2.2±0.3 vol% CO2, and 482±98 ppb CO coming out of the slash ice for about 20-30 minutes was noticed. Wintertime flux estimates of CH4 and CO showed that they represent at minimum 6.4% and 2.2% of that of the summer. It has to be noted that these wintertime fluxes will mostly be released to the atmosphere during the time of snowmelt, thus a limited time period of weeks.

Mapping Of Lake Ice In Northern Europe Using Dual-Polarization RadarSAT-2 Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hindberg, Heidi; Malnes, Erik

2013-12-01

In this paper, we investigate the potential of including cross-polarization data in an unsupervised classification method based on SAR data to determine ice extent over lakes in Northern Europe. By introducing cross-pol data we can increase the separability between open water and ice, and we can decrease misclassifications where open water with waves is classified as ice. Cross-pol data also helps with labelling of the classes. However, cross-pol data can decrease the separability between the classes if the ice on the lake is very thin.

Evaluation of Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Simulated by Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparison Project Models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Mark; Proshuntinsky, Andrew; Aksenov, Yevgeny; Nguyen, An T.; Lindsay, Ron; Haas, Christian; Zhang, Jinlun; Diansky, Nikolay; Kwok, Ron; Maslowski, Wieslaw;

Comparing Geophysical Methods for Determining the Thickness of Arctic Sea Ice: Is There a Correlation Between Thickness and Surface Temperature?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robertson, R.; Bowman, T.; Eagle, J. L.; Fisher, L.; Mankowski, K.; McGrady, N.; Schrecongost, N.; Voll, H.; Zulfiqar, A.; Herman, R. B.

2016-12-01

Several small geophysical surveys were conducted on the Chukchi Sea ice just offshore from the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory near Barrow, Alaska, in March, 2016. The goal was to investigate a possible correlation between the surface temperature and the thickness of the sea ice, as well as to test a potential new method for more accurately determining ice thickness. Surveys were conducted using a capacitively coupled resistivity array, a custom built thermal sensor array sled, ground penetrating radar (GPR), and an ice drill. The thermal sensor array was based on an Arduino microcontroller. It used an infrared (IR) sensor to determine surface temperature, and thermistor-based sensors to determine vertical air temperatures at 6 evenly spaced heights up to a maximum of 1.5 meters. Surface temperature (IR) data show possible correlations with ice drill, resistivity, and GPR data. The vertical air sensors showed almost no variation for any survey line which we postulate is due to the constant wind during each survey. Ice drill data show ice thickness along one 200 meter line varied from 79-95 cm, with an average of 87 cm. The thickness appears to be inversely correlated to surface temperatures. Resistivity and IR data both showed abrupt changes when crossing from the shore to the sea ice along a 400 meter line. GPR and IR data showed similar changes along a separate 900 meter line, suggesting that surface temperature and subsurface composition are related. Resistivity data were obtained in two locations by using the array in an expanding dipole-dipole configuration with 2.5 meter dipoles. The depth to the ice/water boundary was calculated using a "cumulative resistivity" plot and matched the depths obtained via the ice drill to within 2%. This has initiated work to develop a microcontroller-based resistivity array specialized for thickness measurements of thin ice.

Ship-borne electromagnetic induction sounding of sea-ice thickness in the southern Sea of Okhotsk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Uto, Shotaro; Toyota, Takenobu; Shimoda, Haruhito; Tateyama, Kazutaka; Shirasawa, Kunio

Recent observations have revealed that dynamical thickening is dominant in the growth process of sea ice in the southern Sea of Okhotsk. That indicates the importance of understanding the nature of thick deformed ice in this area. The objective of the present paper is to establish a ship-based method for observing the thickness of deformed ice with reasonable accuracy. Since February 2003, one of the authors has engaged in the core sampling using a small basket from the icebreaker Soya. Based on these results, we developed a new model which expressed the internal structure of pack ice in the southern Sea of Okhotsk, as a one-dimensional multilayered structure. Since 2004, the electromagnetic (EM) inductive sounding of sea-ice thickness has been conducted on board Soya. By combining the model and theoretical calculations, a new algorithm was developed for transforming the output of the EM inductive instrument to ice + snow thickness (total thickness). Comparison with total thickness by drillhole observations showed fair agreement. The probability density functions of total thickness in 2004 and 2005 showed some difference, which reflected the difference of fractions of thick deformed ice.

SAR ice thickness mapping in the Beaufort Sea during autumn 2015 using wave dispersion in pancake ice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wadhams, Peter; Aulicino, Giuseppe; Parmiggiani, Flavio

2017-04-01

Pancake and frazil ice represent an important component of the Arctic and Antarctic cryosphere, especially in the Marginal Ice Zones. In particular, pancake ice is the result of a freezing process that takes place in turbulent surface conditions, typically associated with wind and wave fields. The retrieval of its thickness by remote sensing is, in general, a very difficult task. This study presents our ongoing work in the EU SPICES project, in which we aim to use the results of theory and observations developed so far in order to refine a processing system for routinely deriving ice thicknesses in frazil-pancake regions of the Arctic and Antarctic. The change in dispersion of ocean waves as they penetrate into pancake icefield is analyzed in order to derive ice thickness estimation. The spectral changes in wave spectra from imagery provided by space-borne SAR systems (mainly Cosmo-SkyMed and Sentinel-1 satellites) is used to retrieve pancake ice thickness run trough by the R/V Sikuliaq research cruise in the Beaufort Sea (October-November 2015). During several experiments, a line of wave buoys was deployed along a pre-declared line, which could thus be covered by simultaneous overhead Cosmo-SkyMed images. The inversion procedures was then applied to SAR images, the final goal being the comparison between the ice thicknesses measured in situ and those inferred from SAR wave number analysis with the application of a viscous theory. Results show a broad agreement between observed thicknesses and those retrieved from the SAR, the latter slightly overestimating the former in several case studies. In the case of November 1, for example, the agreement is excellent (SAR retrievals 4.9, 5.0, 6.5 cm; observed mean 6.7 cm); on October 11 the agreement is also very good between the SAR retriveal (21 cm) and the output from an along-track EM-sounder; on October 23-24 the SAR retrieval of 18.1 cm is double the observed pancake thickness of 8.7 cm, but this difference can be

Emerging Glacial Lakes in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru: A Case Study at Arteson Glacier

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chisolm, R. E.; Mckinney, D. C.; Gomez, J.; Voss, K.

2012-12-01

Tropical glaciers are an essential component of the water resources systems in the mountainous regions where they are located, and a warming climate has resulted in the accelerated retreat of Andean glaciers in recent decades. The shrinkage of Andean glaciers influences the flood risk for communities living downstream as new glacial lakes have begun to form at the termini of some glaciers. As these lakes continue to grow in area and volume, they pose an increasing risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Ice thickness measurements have been a key missing link in studying the tropical glaciers in Peru and how climate change is likely to impact glacial melt and the growth of glacial lakes. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has rarely been applied to glaciers in Peru to measure ice thickness, and these measurements can tell us a lot about how a warming climate will affect glacier mass balance. This study presents GPR data taken in July 2012 at the Arteson glacier in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. A new lake has begun to form at the terminus of the Arteson glacier, and this lake has key features, including overhanging ice and loose rock likely to create landslides, that could trigger a catastrophic GLOF if the lake continues to grow. This new lake is part of a series of three lakes that have formed below the Arteson glacier. The two lower lakes, Artesonraju and Paron, are much larger so that if there were an avalanche or landslide into the new lake below Arteson glacier, the impact could potentially be more catastrophic than a GLOF from one single lake. Estimates of how the lake mass balance is likely to evolve due to the retreating glacier are key to assessing the flood risk from this dynamic three-lake system. Because the glacier mass balance and lake mass balance are closely linked, the ice thickness measurements and measurements of the bed slope of the Arteson glacier and underlying bedrock give us a clue to how the lake is likely to evolve. GPR measurements of

Thin Sea Ice, Thick Snow, and Widespread Negative Freeboard Observed During N-ICE2015 North of Svalbard

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rösel, Anja; Itkin, Polona; King, Jennifer; Divine, Dmitry; Wang, Caixin; Granskog, Mats A.; Krumpen, Thomas; Gerland, Sebastian

2018-02-01

In recent years, sea-ice conditions in the Arctic Ocean changed substantially toward a younger and thinner sea-ice cover. To capture the scope of these changes and identify the differences between individual regions, in situ observations from expeditions are a valuable data source. We present a continuous time series of in situ measurements from the N-ICE2015 expedition from January to June 2015 in the Arctic Basin north of Svalbard, comprising snow buoy and ice mass balance buoy data and local and regional data gained from electromagnetic induction (EM) surveys and snow probe measurements from four distinct drifts. The observed mean snow depth of 0.53 m for April to early June is 73% above the average value of 0.30 m from historical and recent observations in this region, covering the years 1955-2017. The modal total ice and snow thicknesses, of 1.6 and 1.7 m measured with ground-based EM and airborne EM measurements in April, May, and June 2015, respectively, lie below the values ranging from 1.8 to 2.7 m, reported in historical observations from the same region and time of year. The thick snow cover slows thermodynamic growth of the underlying sea ice. In combination with a thin sea-ice cover this leads to an imbalance between snow and ice thickness, which causes widespread negative freeboard with subsequent flooding and a potential for snow-ice formation. With certainty, 29% of randomly located drill holes on level ice had negative freeboard.

Characterizing Microbial Mat Morphology with Structure from Motion Techniques in Ice-Covered Lake Joyce, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mackey, T. J.; Leidman, S. Z.; Allen, B.; Hawes, I.; Lawrence, J.; Jungblut, A. D.; Krusor, M.; Coleman, L.; Sumner, D. Y.

2015-12-01

Structure from Motion (SFM) techniques can provide quantitative morphological documentation of otherwise inaccessible benthic ecosystems such as microbial mats in Lake Joyce, a perennially ice-covered lake of the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV). Microbial mats are a key ecosystem of MDV lakes, and diverse mat morphologies like pinnacles emerge from interactions among microbial behavior, mineralization, and environmental conditions. Environmental gradients can be isolated to test mat growth models, but assessment of mat morphology along these gradients is complicated by their inaccessibility: the Lake Joyce ice cover is 4-5 m thick, water depths containing diverse pinnacle morphologies are 9-14 m, and relevant mat features are cm-scale. In order to map mat pinnacle morphology in different sedimentary settings, we deployed drop cameras (SeaViewer and GoPro) through 29 GPS referenced drill holes clustered into six stations along a transect spanning 880 m. Once under the ice cover, a boom containing a second GoPro camera was unfurled and rotated to collect oblique images of the benthic mats within dm of the mat-water interface. This setup allowed imaging from all sides over a ~1.5 m diameter area of the lake bottom. Underwater lens parameters were determined for each camera in Agisoft Lens; images were reconstructed and oriented in space with the SFM software Agisoft Photoscan, using the drop camera axis of rotation as up. The reconstructions were compared to downward facing images to assess accuracy, and similar images of an object with known geometry provided a test for expected error in reconstructions. Downward facing images identify decreasing pinnacle abundance in higher sedimentation settings, and quantitative measurements of 3D reconstructions in KeckCAVES LidarViewer supplement these mat morphological facies with measurements of pinnacle height and orientation. Reconstructions also help isolate confounding variables for mat facies trends with measurements

Ice thickness measurements over Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kanagaratnam, P.; Casassa, G.; Thomas, R.; Gogineni, S.

2003-04-01

The Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers (PIG and TG) are the fastest measured glaciers in Antarctica and have been identified as the part of the West Antarctica ice sheet most prone to instability. However, the reasons for the rapid retreat of these glaciers have not been resolved due to insufficient data. In particular, the role of ice shelves in regulating the ice discharge of these glaciers has been a point of contention in the glaciology community. To help resolve this issue the Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECS) and NASA with the support of the Armada de Chile conducted four airborne remote sensing missions over the PIG/TG regions. In addition, two missions were conducted over the Antarctic Peninsula. The University of Kansas operated its Coherent Radar Depth Sounder (CORDS) to measure the thickness of the ice sheet in these regions. CORDS is a pulse-compression radar that has proven its utility in the glaciological surveys over Greenland. The combination of pulse compression and coherent processing has allowed us to obtain high-sensitivity and high-resolution in the along-track direction while keeping the transmitted power low. CORDS transmits a 140-160 MHz chirp signal with 200 Watts of peak power and has a vertical resolution of about 5 meters in ice. We used a four-element dipole array on either side of the wing to transmit and receive the radar signals. We successfully mapped the thickness of the ice sheet over 99% of the PIG/TG flight lines. In this paper we will provide a description of the radar, experiment and signal processing. We will also discuss samples results of the ice thickness, basal conditions and surface roughness.

Plankton assembly in an ultra-oligotrophic Antarctic lake over the summer transition from the ice-cover to ice-free period: A size spectra approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rochera, Carlos; Quesada, Antonio; Toro, Manuel; Rico, Eugenio; Camacho, Antonio

2017-03-01

Lakes from the Antarctic maritime region experience climate change as a main stressor capable of modifying their plankton community structure and function, essentially because summer temperatures are commonly over the freezing point and the lake's ice cap thaws. This study was conducted in such seasonally ice-covered lake (Lake Limnopolar, Byers Peninsula, Livingston Is., Antarctica), which exhibits a microbial dominated pelagic food web. An important feature is also the occurrence of benthic mosses (Drepanocladus longifolius) covering the lake bottom. Plankton dynamics were investigated during the ice-thawing transition to the summer maximum. Both bacterioplankton and viral-like particles were higher near the lake's bottom, suggesting a benthic support. When the lake was under dim conditions because of the snow-and-ice cover, autotrophic picoplankters dominated at deep layers. The taxa-specific photopigments indicated dominance of picocyanobacteria among them when the light availability was lower. By contrast, larger and less edible phytoplankton dominated at the onset of the ice melting. The plankton size spectra were fitted to the continuous model of Pareto distribution. Spectra evolved similarly at two sampled depths, in surface and near the bottom, with slopes increasing until mid-January. However, slopes were less steep (i.e., size classes more uniformly distributed) at the bottom, thus denoting a more efficient utilization of resources. These findings suggest that microbial loop pathways in the lake are efficiently channelized during some periods to the metazoan production (mainly the copepod Boeckella poppei). Our results point to that trophic interactions may still occur in these lakes despite environmental harshness. This results of interest in a framework of increasing temperatures that may reduce the climatic restrictions and therefore stimulate biotic interactions.

Oxygen budget of a perennially ice-covered Antarctic lake

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wharton, R. A., Jr.; Mckay, C. P.; Simmons, G. M., Jr.; Parker, B. C.

1986-01-01

A bulk O2 budget for Lake Hoare, Antarctica, is presented. Five years of seasonal data show the lake to be persistently supersaturated with O2. Oxygen is carried into the lake in glacial meltstreams and is left behind when this water is removed as ice by ablation and sublimation. A diffusive loss of O2 from the lake through the summer moat is suggested. Measured values of the total O2 in the water column indicate that the time scale of O2 turnover is much longer than a year. Based on these results, it is suggested that the amount of O2 in the water does not change significantly throughout the year and that the lake is also supersaturated with N2.

30 years of Arctic sea ice thickness measurements by Royal Navy submarines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wadhams, P.; Hughes, N.; Rodrigues, J. M.; Toberg, N.

2009-12-01

Royal Navy submarines fitted with upward-looking sonars have been collecting sea ice thickness data in the Arctic Ocean since the early 1970s. These data sets provide unique information on the Arctic sea ice thickness distribution and the way it has been changing in the past decades. In March 2007 HMS Tireless conducted a transect of the Arctic Ocean from Fram Strait to the western Beaufort Sea which gave the opportunity to measure the thickness of the sea ice cover during the winter immediately preceding the exceptional retreat of summer 2007. Three years earlier, in April 2004, a voyage by the same submarine took sea ice thickness data in the regions of Fram Strait, the Lincoln Sea and the North Pole. We report on the ice draft, pressure ridge and lead distributions obtained in these two cruises and analyse the evolution of the ice cover from 2004 to 2007 in areas of coincident tracks. In the region from north of Fram Strait to Ellesmere Island (about 85°N, 0-70°W) we find no change in mean drafts between 2004 and 2007 although there is a change in ice composition, with more ridging in 2007 and a slight reduction of modal draft. This agrees with the concept of young ice being driven towards Fram Strait. The region north of Ellesmere Island continues to be a "redoubt" of very thick deformed multiyear ice. In 2007 the submarine profiled extensively under the DAMOCLES ice camp at about 85°N 64°W and under the SEDNA ice camp at about 73°N 145°W. The latter is in the same location as the 1976 AIDJEX ice camp and a sonar survey done by a US submarine in April 1976. We found that a large decrease in mean draft had occurred (32%) over 31 years and that in 2007 the SEDNA region contained the thinnest ice of any part of the Arctic surveyed by the submarine. Under the DAMOCLES ice camp about 200km of topographic sea ice data were gathered with a Kongsberg EM3002 multibeam (MB) sonar, making this the largest continuous data set of its kind. The MB data produce high

Measurement and evolution of the thickness distribution and morphology of deformed features of Antarctic sea ice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tin, Tina

Antarctic sea ice thickness data obtained from drilling on sea ice floes were examined with the goal of enhancing our capability to estimate ice thickness remotely, especially from air- or space-borne altimetry and shipboard visual observations. The state of hydrostatic equilibrium of deformed ice features and the statistical relationships between ice thickness and top surface roughness were examined. Results indicate that ice thickness may be estimated fairly reliably from surface measurements of snow elevation on length scales of ≥100 m. Examination of the morphology of deformed ice features show that Antarctic pressure ridges are flatter and less massive than Arctic pressure ridges and that not all surface features (ridge sails) are associated with features underwater (ridge keels). I propose that the differences in morphology are due to differences in sampling strategies, parent ice characteristics and the magnitude and duration of driving forces. As a result of these findings, the existing methodology used to estimate ice thickness from shipboard visual observations was modified to incorporate the probability that a sail is associated with a keel underwater, and the probability that keels may be found under level surfaces. Using the improved methodology, ice thickness was estimated from ship observations data obtained during two cruises in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. The dynamic and thermodynamic processes involved in the development of the ice prior to their observation were examined employing a regional sea ice-mixed layer-pycnocline model. Both our model results and previously published ice core data indicate that thermodynamic thickening is the dominant process that determines the thickness of first year ice in the central Ross Sea, although dynamic thickening also plays a significant role. Ice core data also indicate that snow ice forms a significant proportion of the total ice mass. For ice in the northeast Ross Sea in the summer, model results and

Estimation of Antarctic Land-Fast Sea Ice Algal Biomass and Snow Thickness From Under-Ice Radiance Spectra in Two Contrasting Areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wongpan, P.; Meiners, K. M.; Langhorne, P. J.; Heil, P.; Smith, I. J.; Leonard, G. H.; Massom, R. A.; Clementson, L. A.; Haskell, T. G.

2018-03-01

Fast ice is an important component of Antarctic coastal marine ecosystems, providing a prolific habitat for ice algal communities. This work examines the relationships between normalized difference indices (NDI) calculated from under-ice radiance measurements and sea ice algal biomass and snow thickness for Antarctic fast ice. While this technique has been calibrated to assess biomass in Arctic fast ice and pack ice, as well as Antarctic pack ice, relationships are currently lacking for Antarctic fast ice characterized by bottom ice algae communities with high algal biomass. We analyze measurements along transects at two contrasting Antarctic fast ice sites in terms of platelet ice presence: near and distant from an ice shelf, i.e., in McMurdo Sound and off Davis Station, respectively. Snow and ice thickness, and ice salinity and temperature measurements support our paired in situ optical and biological measurements. Analyses show that NDI wavelength pairs near the first chlorophyll a (chl a) absorption peak (≈440 nm) explain up to 70% of the total variability in algal biomass. Eighty-eight percent of snow thickness variability is explained using an NDI with a wavelength pair of 648 and 567 nm. Accounting for pigment packaging effects by including the ratio of chl a-specific absorption coefficients improved the NDI-based algal biomass estimation only slightly. Our new observation-based algorithms can be used to estimate Antarctic fast ice algal biomass and snow thickness noninvasively, for example, by using moored sensors (time series) or mapping their spatial distributions using underwater vehicles.

Temperature profile for glacial ice at the South Pole: Implications for life in a nearby subglacial lake

PubMed Central

Price, P. Buford; Nagornov, Oleg V.; Bay, Ryan; Chirkin, Dmitry; He, Yudong; Miocinovic, Predrag; Richards, Austin; Woschnagg, Kurt; Koci, Bruce; Zagorodnov, Victor

2002-01-01

Airborne radar has detected ≈100 lakes under the Antarctic ice cap, the largest of which is Lake Vostok. International planning is underway to search in Lake Vostok for microbial life that may have evolved in isolation from surface life for millions of years. It is thought, however, that the lakes may be hydraulically interconnected. If so, unsterile drilling would contaminate not just one but many of them. Here we report measurements of temperature vs. depth down to 2,345 m in ice at the South Pole, within 10 km from a subglacial lake seen by airborne radar profiling. We infer a temperature at the 2,810-m deep base of the South Pole ice and at the lake of −9°C, which is 7°C below the pressure-induced melting temperature of freshwater ice. To produce the strong radar signal, the frozen lake must consist of a mix of sediment and ice in a flat bed, formed before permanent Antarctic glaciation. It may, like Siberian and Antarctic permafrost, be rich in microbial life. Because of its hydraulic isolation, proximity to South Pole Station infrastructure, and analog to a Martian polar cap, it is an ideal place to test a sterile drill before risking contamination of Lake Vostok. From the semiempirical expression for strain rate vs. shear stress, we estimate shear vs. depth and show that the IceCube neutrino observatory will be able to map the three-dimensional ice-flow field within a larger volume (0.5 km3) and at lower temperatures (−20°C to −35°C) than has heretofore been possible. PMID:12060731

Satellite observation of lake ice as a climate indicator - Initial results from statewide monitoring in Wisconsin

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wynne, Randolph H.; Lillesand, Thomas M.

1993-01-01

The research reported herein focused on the general hypothesis that satellite remote sensing of large-area, long-term trends in lake ice phenology (formation and breakup) is a robust, integrated measure of regional and global climate change. To validate this hypothesis, we explored the use of data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) to discriminate the presence and extent of lake ice during the winter of 1990-1991 on the 45 lakes and reservoirs in Wisconsin with a surface area greater than 1,000 hectares. Our results suggest both the feasibility of using the AVHRR to determine the date of lake ice breakup as well as the strong correlation (R= -0.87) of the date so derived with local surface-based temperature measurements. These results suggest the potential of using current and archival satellite data to monitor changes in the date of lake ice breakup as a means of detecting regional 'signals' of greenhouse warming.

Ice Processes and Growth History on Arctic and Sub-Arctic Lakes Using ERS-1 SAR Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morris, K.; Jeffries, M. O.; Weeks, W. F.

1995-01-01

A survey of ice growth and decay processes on a selection of shallow and deep sub-Arctic and Arctic lakes was conducted using radiometrically calibrated ERS-1 SAR images. Time series of radar backscatter data were compiled for selected sites on the lakes during the period ot ice cover (September to June) for the years 1991-1992 and 1992-1993. A variety of lake-ice processes could be observed, and significant changes in backscatter occurred from the time of initial ice formation in autumn until the onset of the spring thaw. Backscatter also varied according to the location and depth of the lakes. The spatial and temporal changes in backscatter were most constant and predictable at the shallow lakes on the North Slope of Alaska. As a consequence, they represent the most promising sites for long-term monitoring and the detection of changes related to global warming and its effects on the polar regions.

Holocene temperature history at the west Greenland Ice Sheet margin reconstructed from lake sediments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Axford, Y.; Losee, S.; Briner, J. P.; Francis, D.; Langdon, P. G.; Walker, I.

2011-12-01

Paleoclimate proxy data can help reduce uncertainties regarding how the Greenland Ice Sheet, and thus global sea level, will respond to future climate change. Studies of terrestrial deposits along Greenland's margins offer opportunities to reconstruct both past temperature changes and the associated changes in Greenland Ice Sheet extent, thus empirically characterizing the ice sheet's response to temperature change. Here we present Holocene paleoclimate reconstructions developed from sediment records of five lakes along the western ice sheet margin, near Jakobshavn Isbræ and Disko Bugt. Insect (Chironomidae, or non-biting midge) remains from North Lake provide quantitative estimates of summer temperatures over the past ca. 7500 years at multi-centennial resolution, and changes in sediment composition at all five lakes offer evidence for glacier fluctuations, changes in lake productivity, and other environmental changes throughout the Holocene. Aims of this study include quantification of warmth in the early to mid Holocene, when summer solar insolation forcing exceeded present-day values at northern latitudes and the local Greenland Ice Sheet margin receded inboard of its present position, and the magnitude of subsequent Neoglacial and Little Ice Age cooling that drove ice sheet expansion. We find that the Jakobshavn Isbrae region experienced the warmest temperatures of the Holocene (with summers 2 to 3.5 degrees C warmer than present) between ~6000 and 4000 years ago. Neoglacial cooling began rather abruptly ~4000 years ago and intensified 3000 years ago. Our proxy data suggest that the coldest summers of the Holocene occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries in the Jakobshavn region. These results agree well with previous glacial geologic studies reconstructing local ice margin positions through the Holocene. Such reconstructions of paleoclimate and past ice sheet extent provide targets for testing and improving ice sheet models.

GIA Modeling with 3D Rheology and Recent Ice Thickness Changes in Polar Regions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Van Der Wal, W.; Wu, P. P.

2012-12-01

Models for Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) mainly focus on the response of the solid Earth to ice thickness changes on the scale of thousands of years. However, some of the fastest vertical movement in former glaciated regions is due to changes in ice thickness that occurred within the last 1,000 years. Similar studies for the polar regions are limited, possibly due to a lack of knowledge on past ice sheet thicknesses there. Still, predictions of uplift rate and mass change due to recent ice thickness changes need to improve in order to provide accurate estimates of current mass loss. In order to obtain a measurable response to variations in ice thickness in the last 1,000 years, viscosity in the lithosphere or top of the upper mantle needs to be lower than the mantle viscosity values in conventional GIA models. In the absence of reliable models for recent ice thickness changes we aim to bracket the predicted uplift rates and gravity rates for such changes by assuming simplified past ice growth and melt patterns. Instead of adding a low-viscous layer in the mantle a priori, creep parameters are based on information from experimental constraints, seismology and heatflow measurements. Thus the model includes viscosity varying in space and time. The simulations are performed on a finite element model of a spherical, self-gravitating, incompressible Earth using the commercial software Abaqus. 3D composite rheology is implemented based on temperature fields from heatflow measurements or seismic velocity anomalies. The lithospheric thickness does not need to be specified as the effective elastic thickness is determined by the local effective viscosity. ICE-5G is used as ice loading history while ice changes during and around the Little Ice Age in Greenland are assumed to take place near the coast. A 3D composite rheology has been shown to match historic sea levels well, but uplift rates are somewhat underestimated. With the GIA models that best match uplift rates in

Local and synoptic controls on rapid supraglacial lake drainage in West Greenland

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williamson, Andrew; Banwell, Alison; Arnold, Neil; Willis, Ian

2016-04-01

Many supraglacial lakes within the ablation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) are known to drain rapidly (in <1 day) in the mid- to late melt season, delivering large meltwater pulses to the subglacial drainage system, thus affecting basal water pressures and ice-sheet dynamics. Although it is now generally recognised that rapid lake drainage is caused by hydrofracture, the precise controls on hydrofracture initiation remain poorly understood: they may be linked to a local critical water-volume threshold, or they may be associated with synoptic-scale factors, such as ice thickness, driving stresses, ice velocities and strain rates. A combination of the local water-volume threshold and one or more synoptic-scale factors may explain the overall patterns of rapid lake drainage, but this requires verification using targeted field- and remotely-based studies that cover large areas of the GrIS and span long timescales. Here, we investigate a range of potential controls on rapid supraglacial lake drainage in the land-terminating Paakitsoq region of the ice sheet, northeast of Jakobshavn Isbræ, for the 2014 melt season. We have analysed daily 250-m Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery in order to calculate lake areas, depths and volumes, and have developed an automatic lake-tracking algorithm to determine the dates on which all rapid lake drainage events occur. For each rapidly draining lake, the water volumes immediately prior to drainage are compared with other local factors, notably lake-filling rate and ice thickness, and with a variety of synoptic-scale features, such as slope angles, driving stresses, surface velocities, surface strain rates and the incidence of nearby lake-drainage events. We present the outcomes of our statistical analysis to elicit the statistically significant controls on hydrofracture beneath supraglacial lakes.

Bathymetric and oceanic controls on Abbot Ice Shelf thickness and stability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cochran, J. R.; Jacobs, S. S.; Tinto, K. J.; Bell, R. E.

2014-05-01

Ice shelves play key roles in stabilizing Antarctica's ice sheets, maintaining its high albedo and returning freshwater to the Southern Ocean. Improved data sets of ice shelf draft and underlying bathymetry are important for assessing ocean-ice interactions and modeling ice response to climate change. The long, narrow Abbot Ice Shelf south of Thurston Island produces a large volume of meltwater, but is close to being in overall mass balance. Here we invert NASA Operation IceBridge (OIB) airborne gravity data over the Abbot region to obtain sub-ice bathymetry, and combine OIB elevation and ice thickness measurements to estimate ice draft. A series of asymmetric fault-bounded basins formed during rifting of Zealandia from Antarctica underlie the Abbot Ice Shelf west of 94° W and the Cosgrove Ice Shelf to the south. Sub-ice water column depths along OIB flight lines are sufficiently deep to allow warm deep and thermocline waters observed near the western Abbot ice front to circulate through much of the ice shelf cavity. An average ice shelf draft of ~200 m, 15% less than the Bedmap2 compilation, coincides with the summer transition between the ocean surface mixed layer and upper thermocline. Thick ice streams feeding the Abbot cross relatively stable grounding lines and are rapidly thinned by the warmest inflow. While the ice shelf is presently in equilibrium, the overall correspondence between draft distribution and thermocline depth indicates sensitivity to changes in characteristics of the ocean surface and deep waters.

The regional climate model REMO (v2015) coupled with the 1-D freshwater lake model FLake (v1): Fenno-Scandinavian climate and lakes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pietikäinen, Joni-Pekka; Markkanen, Tiina; Sieck, Kevin; Jacob, Daniela; Korhonen, Johanna; Räisänen, Petri; Gao, Yao; Ahola, Jaakko; Korhonen, Hannele; Laaksonen, Ari; Kaurola, Jussi

2018-04-01

The regional climate model REMO was coupled with the FLake lake model to include an interactive treatment of lakes. Using this new version, the Fenno-Scandinavian climate and lake characteristics were studied in a set of 35-year hindcast simulations. Additionally, sensitivity tests related to the parameterization of snow albedo were conducted. Our results show that overall the new model version improves the representation of the Fenno-Scandinavian climate in terms of 2 m temperature and precipitation, but the downside is that an existing wintertime cold bias in the model is enhanced. The lake surface water temperature, ice depth and ice season length were analyzed in detail for 10 Finnish, 4 Swedish and 2 Russian lakes and 1 Estonian lake. The results show that the model can reproduce these characteristics with reasonably high accuracy. The cold bias during winter causes overestimation of ice layer thickness, for example, at several of the studied lakes, but overall the values from the model are realistic and represent the lake physics well in a long-term simulation. We also analyzed the snow depth on ice from 10 Finnish lakes and vertical temperature profiles from 5 Finnish lakes and the model results are realistic.

Radar Thickness Measurements over the Southern Part of the Greenland Ice Sheet

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chuah, Teong Sek; Gogineni, Siva Prasad; Allen, Christopher; Wohletz, Brad; Wong, Y. C.; Ng, P. Y.; Ajayi, E.

1996-01-01

We performed ice thickness measurements over the southern part of the Greenland ice sheet during June and July 1993. We used an airborne coherent radar depth sounder for these measurements. The radar was operated from a NASA P-3 aircraft equipped with GPS receivers. Radar data were collected in conjunction with laser altimeter and microwave altimeter measurements of ice surface elevation. This report provides radio echograms and thickness profiles from data collected during 1993.

NASA Research Leads to First Complete Map of Antarctic Ice Flows

NASA Image and Video Library

2011-08-18

This image is the first complete map of the speed and direction of ice flow in Antartica. The thick black lines delineate major ice divides. Subglacial lakes in Antarctica interior are also outlined in black.

A glimpse beneath Antarctic sea ice: observation of platelet-layer thickness and ice-volume fraction with multifrequency EM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoppmann, Mario; Hunkeler, Priska A.; Hendricks, Stefan; Kalscheuer, Thomas; Gerdes, Rüdiger

2016-04-01

In Antarctica, ice crystals (platelets) form and grow in supercooled waters below ice shelves. These platelets rise, accumulate beneath nearby sea ice, and subsequently form a several meter thick, porous sub-ice platelet layer. This special ice type is a unique habitat, influences sea-ice mass and energy balance, and its volume can be interpreted as an indicator of the health of an ice shelf. Although progress has been made in determining and understanding its spatio-temporal variability based on point measurements, an investigation of this phenomenon on a larger scale remains a challenge due to logistical constraints and a lack of suitable methodology. In the present study, we applied a lateral constrained Marquardt-Levenberg inversion to a unique multi-frequency electromagnetic (EM) induction sounding dataset obtained on the ice-shelf influenced fast-ice regime of Atka Bay, eastern Weddell Sea. We adapted the inversion algorithm to incorporate a sensor specific signal bias, and confirmed the reliability of the algorithm by performing a sensitivity study using synthetic data. We inverted the field data for sea-ice and platelet-layer thickness and electrical conductivity, and calculated ice-volume fractions within the platelet layer using Archie's Law. The thickness results agreed well with drillhole validation datasets within the uncertainty range, and the ice-volume fraction yielded results comparable to other studies. Both parameters together enable an estimation of the total ice volume within the platelet layer, which was found to be comparable to the volume of landfast sea ice in this region, and corresponded to more than a quarter of the annual basal melt volume of the nearby Ekström Ice Shelf. Our findings show that multi-frequency EM induction sounding is a suitable approach to efficiently map sea-ice and platelet-layer properties, with important implications for research into ocean/ice-shelf/sea-ice interactions. However, a successful application of this

Analysis of ERS 1 synthetic aperture radar data of frozen lakes in northern Montana and implications for climate studies

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hall, Dorothy K.; Fagre, Daniel B.; Klasner, Fritz; Linebaugh, Gregg; Liston, Glen E.

1994-01-01

Lakes that freeze each winter are good indicators of regional climate change if key parameters, such as freeze-up and breakup date and maximum ice thickness, are measured over a decade-scale time frame. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data have proven to be especially useful for measurement of climatologically significant parameters characteristic of frozen lakes. In this paper, five lakes in Glacier National Park, Montana, have been studied both in the field and using Earth Remote-Sensing Satellite (ERS) 1 SAR data during the 1992-1993 winter. The lakes are characterized by clear ice, sometimes with tubular or rounded bubbles, and often with a layer of snow ice on top of the clear ice. They are also often snow covered. Freeze-up is detected quite easily using ERS 1 SAR data as soon as a thin layer of ice forms. The effect of snow ice on the backscatter is thought to be significant but is, as yet, undetermined. On the five lakes studied, relative backscatter was found to increase with ice thickness until a maximum was reached in February. Breakup, an often ill-defined occurrence, is difficult to detect because surface water causes the SAR signal to be absorbed, thus masking the ice below. Comparison of the bubble structure of thaw lakes in northern Alaska with lakes in northern Montana has shown that the ice structure is quite different, and this difference may contribute to differential SAR signature evolution in the lakes of the two areas.

Field Investigation of Surface-Lake Processes on Ice Shelves: Results of the 2015/16 Field Campaign on McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

MacAyeal, Doug; Banwell, Alison; Willis, Ian; Macdonald, Grant

2016-04-01

Ice-shelf instability and breakup of the style exhibited by Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002 remains the most difficult glaciological process of consequence to observe in detail. It is, however, vital to do so because ice-shelf breakup has the potential to influence the buttressing controls on inland ice discharge, and thus to affect sea level. Several mechanisms enabling Larsen B style breakup have been proposed, including the ability of surface lakes to introduce ice-shelf fractures when they fill and drain, thereby changing the surface loads the ice-shelf must adjust to. Our model suggest that these fractures resulted in a chain-reaction style drainage of >2750 surface lakes on the Larsen B in the days prior to its demise. To validate this and other models, we began a field project on the McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) during the 2015/16 austral summer. Advantages of the MIS study site are: there is considerable surface melting during 3-6 weeks of the summer season, the ice is sufficiently thin (< 30 m in places) to allow observable viscoelastic responses to relatively small loads, and it is close to a center of logistical support (McMurdo Station). Here we show initial results from the field campaign, including GPS and water-depth observations of a lake that has filled and drained over multiple week timescales in previous austral summers. We also report on the analysis of high-resolution WorldView satellite imagery from several summers that reveals the complexity of surface meltwater movement in channels and subsurface void spaces. Initial reconnaissance of the largest surface-lake features reveal that they have a central circular depression surrounded by an uplifted ring, which supports one of the central tenets of our ice-shelf flexure theory. A second field season is anticipated for the 2016/17 austral summer.

Interactions Between Ice Thickness, Bottom Ice Algae, and Transmitted Spectral Irradiance in the Chukchi Sea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arntsen, A. E.; Perovich, D. K.; Polashenski, C.; Stwertka, C.

2015-12-01

The amount of light that penetrates the Arctic sea ice cover impacts sea-ice mass balance as well as ecological processes in the upper ocean. The seasonally evolving macro and micro spatial variability of transmitted spectral irradiance observed in the Chukchi Sea from May 18 to June 17, 2014 can be primarily attributed to variations in snow depth, ice thickness, and bottom ice algae concentrations. This study characterizes the interactions among these dominant variables using observed optical properties at each sampling site. We employ a normalized difference index to compute estimates of Chlorophyll a concentrations and analyze the increased attenuation of incident irradiance due to absorption by biomass. On a kilometer spatial scale, the presence of bottom ice algae reduced the maximum transmitted irradiance by about 1.5 orders of magnitude when comparing floes of similar snow and ice thicknesses. On a meter spatial scale, the combined effects of disparities in the depth and distribution of the overlying snow cover along with algae concentrations caused maximum transmittances to vary between 0.0577 and 0.282 at a single site. Temporal variability was also observed as the average integrated transmitted photosynthetically active radiation increased by one order of magnitude to 3.4% for the last eight measurement days compared to the first nine. Results provide insight on how interrelated physical and ecological parameters of sea ice in varying time and space may impact new trends in Arctic sea ice extent and the progression of melt.

Long-term trends in a Dimictic Lake

USGS Publications Warehouse

Robertson, Dale M.; Hsieh, Yi-Fang; Lathrop, Richard C; Wu, Chin H; Magee, Madeline; Hamilton, David P.

2016-01-01

 The one-dimensional hydrodynamic ice model, DYRESM-WQ-I, was modified to simulate ice cover and thermal structure of dimictic Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, USA, over a continuous 104-year period (1911–2014). The model results were then used to examine the drivers of changes in ice cover and water temperature, focusing on the responses to shifts in air temperature, wind speed, and water clarity at multiyear timescales. Observations of the drivers include a change in the trend of warming air temperatures from 0.081 °C per decade before 1981 to 0.334 °C per decade thereafter, as well as a shift in mean wind speed from 4.44 m s−1 before 1994 to 3.74 m s−1 thereafter. Observations show that Lake Mendota has experienced significant changes in ice cover: later ice-on date(9.0 days later per century), earlier ice-off date (12.3 days per century), decreasing ice cover duration (21.3 days per century), while model simulations indicate a change in maximum ice thickness (12.7 cm decrease per century). Model simulations also show changes in the lake thermal regime of earlier stratification onset (12.3 days per century), later fall turnover (14.6 days per century), longer stratification duration (26.8 days per century), and decreasing summer hypolimnetic temperatures (−1.4 °C per century). Correlation analysis of lake variables and driving variables revealed ice cover variables, stratification onset, epilimnetic temperature, and hypolimnetic temperature were most closely correlated with air temperature, whereas freeze-over water temperature, hypolimnetic heating, and fall turnover date were more closely correlated with wind speed. Each lake variable (i.e., ice-on and ice-off dates, ice cover duration, maximum ice thickness, freeze-over water temperature, stratification onset, fall turnover date, stratification duration, epilimnion temperature, hypolimnion temperature, and hypolimnetic heating) was averaged for the three periods (1911–1980, 1981�

Variability of the volume and thickness of sea ice in the Bay of Bothnia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ronkainen, Iina; Lehtiranta, Jonni; Lensu, Mikko; Rinne, Eero; Hordoir, Robinson; Haapala, Jari

2017-04-01

Variability of the volume and thickness of sea ice in the Bay of Bothnia In our study, we want to quantify the variability of sea ice volume and thickness in the Bay of Bothnia and to introduce the drivers of the observed variability. There has been similar studies, but only for fast ice. We use various different data sets: in-situ ice thickness data, remote sensing data, model data and ice charts. In-situ data is from the regular monitoring stations in the coastal fast ice zone and from field campaigns. The remote sensing data is helicopter-borne and ship-borne electromagnetic data. The models we use are HELMI and NEMO-Nordic. We analyze the different data sets and compare them to each other to solve the inter-annual variability and to discuss the ratio of level and deformed ice.

Determination of Ice Crust Thickness from Flanking Cracks Along Ridges on Europa

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Billings, S. E.; Kattenhorn, S. A.

2002-01-01

We use equations describing the deflection of an elastic plate below a line load to estimate ice crust thickness below ridges on Europa. Using a range of elastic parameters, ice thickness is calculated to fall in the range 0.2 2.6 km. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

A glimpse beneath Antarctic sea ice: observation of platelet-layer thickness and ice-volume fraction with multi-frequency EM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hendricks, S.; Hoppmann, M.; Hunkeler, P. A.; Kalscheuer, T.; Gerdes, R.

2015-12-01

In Antarctica, ice crystals (platelets) form and grow in supercooled waters below ice shelves. These platelets rise and accumulate beneath nearby sea ice to form a several meter thick sub-ice platelet layer. This special ice type is a unique habitat, influences sea-ice mass and energy balance, and its volume can be interpreted as an indicator for ice - ocean interactions. Although progress has been made in determining and understanding its spatio-temporal variability based on point measurements, an investigation of this phenomenon on a larger scale remains a challenge due to logistical constraints and a lack of suitable methodology. In the present study, we applied a lateral constrained Marquardt-Levenberg inversion to a unique multi-frequency electromagnetic (EM) induction sounding dataset obtained on the ice-shelf influenced fast-ice regime of Atka Bay, eastern Weddell Sea. We adapted the inversion algorithm to incorporate a sensor specific signal bias, and confirmed the reliability of the algorithm by performing a sensitivity study using synthetic data. We inverted the field data for sea-ice and sub-ice platelet-layer thickness and electrical conductivity, and calculated ice-volume fractions from platelet-layer conductivities using Archie's Law. The thickness results agreed well with drill-hole validation datasets within the uncertainty range, and the ice-volume fraction also yielded plausible results. Our findings imply that multi-frequency EM induction sounding is a suitable approach to efficiently map sea-ice and platelet-layer properties. However, we emphasize that the successful application of this technique requires a break with traditional EM sensor calibration strategies due to the need of absolute calibration with respect to a physical forward model.

Study of the Microbial Diversity of a Newly Discovered East Antarctic Freshwater Lake, L27C, and of a Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huang, Jonathan P.; Hoover, Richard B.; Andersen, Dale; Bej, Asim K.

2010-01-01

The microbial communities that reside within freshwater lakes of Schirmacher and Untersee Oases in East Antarctica must cope with extreme conditions that may include cold temperature, annual freeze-thaw cycles, exposure to UV radiation, especially during the austral summer months, low light beneath thick ice-cover, followed by seasonal darkness. The objective of this study was to assess the microbial biodiversity and distribution from samples taken from two freshwater lakes (L27C and Lake Untersee) that were collected during the Tawani 2008 International Antarctic Expedition that conducted research in this region of Antarctica. L27C is a small, previously unreported lake residing 2 km WNW of Maitri Station at Schirmacher Oasis. Biodiversity and distribution of microorganisms within the lake were studied using both culture-independent and culture-dependent methodologies based upon the analysis of eubacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences. Lake Untersee, a perennially ice-covered, ultra-oligotrophic, lake in the Otto-von-Gruber-Gebirge (Gruber Mountains) of central Dronning Maud Land was also sampled and the microbial diversity was analyzed by eubacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences derived from pure cultures. Direct culturing of water samples from each lake on separate R2A growth medium exhibited a variety of microorganisms including: Janthinobacterium, Hymenobacter, Sphingamonas, Subtercola, Deinococcus, Arthrobacter, Flavobacterium, Polaromonas, Rhodoferax and Duganella. The evaluation of samples from L27C through culture-independent methodology identified a rich microbial diversity consisting of six different phyla of bacteria. The culture-independent analysis also displayed the majority of bacteria (56%) belonged to the Class gamma-proteobacteria within the phylum Proteobacteria. Within the Class gamma-proteobacteria, Acinetobacter dominated (48%) the total microbial load. Overall, L27C exhibited 7 different phyla of bacteria and 20 different genera. Statistical analysis

Effect of Ice-Shell Thickness Variations on the Tidal Deformation of Enceladus

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choblet, G.; Cadek, O.; Behounkova, M.; Tobie, G.; Kozubek, T.

2015-12-01

Recent analysis of Enceladus's gravity and topography has suggested that the thickness of the ice shell significantly varies laterally - from 30-40 km in the south polar region to 60 km elsewhere. These variations may influence the activity of the geysers and increase the tidal heat production in regions where the ice shell is thinned. Using a model including a regional or global subsurface ocean and Maxwell viscoelasticity, we investigate the impact of these variations on the tidal deformation of the moon and its heat production. For that purpose, we use different numerical approaches - finite elements, local application of 1d spectral method, and a generalized spectral method. Results obtained with these three approaches for various models of ice-shell thickness variations are presented and compared. Implications of a reduced ice shell thickness for the south polar terrain activity are discussed.

Seasonal thickness changes of Arctic sea ice north of Svalbard and implications for satellite remote sensing, ecosystem, and environmental management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gerland, S.; Rösel, A.; King, J.; Spreen, G.; Divine, D.; Eltoft, T.; Gallet, J. C.; Hudson, S. R.; Itkin, P.; Krumpen, T.; Liston, G. E.; Merkouriadi, I.; Negrel, J.; Nicolaus, M.; Polashenski, C.; Assmy, P.; Barber, D. G.; Duarte, P.; Doulgeris, A. P.; Haas, C.; Hughes, N.; Johansson, M.; Meier, W.; Perovich, D. K.; Provost, C.; Richter-Menge, J.; Skourup, H.; Wagner, P.; Wilkinson, J.; Granskog, M. A.; Steen, H.

2016-12-01

Sea-ice thickness is a crucial parameter to consider when assessing the status of Arctic sea ice, whether for environmental management, monitoring projects, or regional or pan-arctic assessments. Modern satellite remote sensing techniques allow us to monitor ice extent and to estimate sea-ice thickness changes; but accurate quantifications of sea-ice thickness distribution rely on in situ and airborne surveys. From January to June 2015, an international expedition (N-ICE2015) took place in the Arctic Ocean north of Svalbard, with the Norwegian research vessel RV Lance frozen into drifting sea ice. In total, four drifts, with four different floes were made during that time. Sea-ice and snow thickness measurements were conducted on all main ice types present in the region, first year ice, multiyear ice, and young ice. Measurement methods included ground and helicopter based electromagnetic surveys, drillings, hot-wire installations, snow-sonde transects, snow stakes, and ice mass balance and snow buoys. Ice thickness distributions revealed modal thicknesses in spring between 1.6 and 1.7 m, which is lower than reported for the region from comparable studies in 2009 (2.4 m) and 2011 (1.8 m). Knowledge about the ice thickness distribution in a region is crucial to the understanding of climate processes, and also relevant to other disciplines. Sea-ice thickness data collected during N-ICE2015 can also give us insights into how ice and snow thicknesses affect ecosystem processes. In this presentation, we will explore the influence of snow cover and ocean properties on ice thickness, and the role of sea-ice thickness in air-ice-ocean interactions. We will also demonstrate how information about ice thickness aids classification of different sea ice types from SAR satellite remote sensing, which has real-world applications for shipping and ice forecasting, and how sea ice thickness data contributes to climate assessments.

Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice thickness from CryoSat and Envisat radar altimetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hendricks, S.; Rinne, E. J.; Paul, S.; Ricker, R.; Skourup, H.; Kern, S.; Sandven, S.

2017-12-01

One objective of the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) on Sea Ice is the generation of a climate data record of sea-ice thickness from satellite radar altimetry in both hemispheres. We report on the results of the second phase of the CCI project, which are based on the15-year (2002-2017) monthly data record from Envisat and CryoSat-2 radar altimeter data. The data records needs to maintain consistency in the freeboard retrieval, freeboard to thickness conversion and uncertainty estimation for the full observational period. The main challenge has been to maintain consistency in the sea-ice freeboard retrieval due to the different radar altimeter concepts and footprints between Envisat and CryoSat-2. We have developed a novel empirical algorithm for both missions to minimize inter-mission biases for surface type classification as well as freeboard retrieval based on CryoSat reference data for the overlap period from November 2010 to March 2012. The parametrization takes differences between sea-ice surface properties in both hemisphere and the seasonal cycle into account. We report on the changes of sea-ice thickness in the Arctic winter seasons since 2002 and the comparison to independent freeboard and thickness observations. Far less validation data exists for the southern hemisphere and we provide an overview of changes and the expected skill of Antarctic sea ice thickness of the full seasonal cycle.

Carbon dioxide partial pressure and 13C content of north temperate and boreal lakes at spring ice melt

USGS Publications Warehouse

Striegl, Robert G.; Kortelainen, Pirkko; Chanton, J.P.; Wickland, K.P.; Bugna, G.C.; Rantakari, M.

2001-01-01

Carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulates under lake ice in winter and degasses to the atmosphere after ice melt. This large springtime CO2 pulse is not typically considered in surface-atmosphere flux estimates, because most field studies have not sampled through ice during late winter. Measured CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) of lake surface water ranged from 8.6 to 4,290 Pa (85-4,230 ??atm) in 234 north temperate and boreal lakes prior to ice melt during 1998 and 1999. Only four lakes had surface pCO2 less than or equal to atmospheric pCO2, whereas 75% had pCO2 >5 times atmospheric. The ??13CDIC (DIC = ??CO2) of 142 of the lakes ranged from -26.28??? to +0.95.???. Lakes with the greatest pCO2 also had the lightest ??13CDIC, which indicates respiration as their primary CO2 source. Finnish lakes that received large amounts of dissolved organic carbon from surrounding peatlands had the greatest pCO2. Lakes set in noncarbonate till and bedrock in Minnesota and Wisconsin had the smallest pCO2 and the heaviest ??13CDIC, which indicates atmospheric and/or mineral sources of C for those lakes. Potential emissions for the period after ice melt were 2.36 ?? 1.44 mol CO2 m-2 for lakes with average pCO2 values and were as large as 13.7 ?? 8.4 mol CO2 m-2 for lakes with high pCO2 values.

A Comparison of Sea Ice Type, Sea Ice Temperature, and Snow Thickness Distributions in the Arctic Seasonal Ice Zones with the DMSP SSM/I

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

St.Germain, Karen; Cavalieri, Donald J.; Markus, Thorsten

1997-01-01

Global climate studies have shown that sea ice is a critical component in the global climate system through its effect on the ocean and atmosphere, and on the earth's radiation balance. Polar energy studies have further shown that the distribution of thin ice and open water largely controls the distribution of surface heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere within the winter Arctic ice pack. The thickness of the ice, the depth of snow on the ice, and the temperature profile of the snow/ice composite are all important parameters in calculating surface heat fluxes. In recent years, researchers have used various combinations of DMSP SSMI channels to independently estimate the thin ice type (which is related to ice thickness), the thin ice temperature, and the depth of snow on the ice. In each case validation efforts provided encouraging results, but taken individually each algorithm gives only one piece of the information necessary to compute the energy fluxes through the ice and snow. In this paper we present a comparison of the results from each of these algorithms to provide a more comprehensive picture of the seasonal ice zone using passive microwave observations.

Phase-sensitive radar on thick Antarctic ice - how well does it work?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Binder, Tobias; Eisen, Olaf; Helm, Veit; Humbert, Angelika; Steinhage, Daniel

2016-04-01

Phase-sensitive radar (pRES) has become one of the mostly used tools to determine basal melt rates as well as vertical strain in ice sheets. Whereas most applications are performed on ice shelves, only few experiments were conducted on thick ice in Greenland or Antarctica. The technical constrains on an ice shelf to deduce basal melt rates are less demanding than on inland ice of more than 2 km thickness. First, the ice itself is usually only several 100s of meters thick; and, second, the reflection coefficient at the basal interface between sea water and ice is the second strongest one possible. Although the presence of marine ice with higher conductivities might increase attenuation in the lower parts, most experiments on shelves were successful. To transfer this technology to inland regions, either for the investigation of basal melt rates of subglacial hydrological networks or for determining vertical strain rates in basal regions, a reliable estimate of the current system performance is necessary. To this end we conducted an experiment at and in the vicinity of the EPICA deep ice core drill site EDML in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. That site has been explored in extraordinary detail with different geophysical methods and provides an already well-studied ice core and borehole, in particular with respect to physical properties like crystal orientation fabric, dielectric properties and matching of internal radar horizons with conductivity signals. We present data from a commercially available pRES system initially recorded in January 2015 and repeated measurements in January 2016. The pRES data are matched to existing and already depth-calibrated airborne radar data. Apart from identifying prominent internal layers, e.g. the one originating from the deposits of the Toba eruption at around 75 ka, we put special focus on the identification of the basal reflection at multiple polarizations. We discuss the potential uncertainty estimates and requirements to

Evaluation of the ice thickness by means of the radio interferential method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ostrovskij, Vasily; Lagunov, Alexey; Orlov, Alexey

2017-09-01

The Arctic has a strategic importance for Russia. Many countries of the world are interested in the industrial use of the Northern sea route. A vast part of the Arctic Ocean is covered with ice. For vessels plotting knowing thickness of ice is essential. The method of remote sensing and the radar method are the most often applied ones for determining ice thickness. The first method is a very expensive and difficult in operation. The radar method is more operational but because of rather high weight of the equipment it requires going out on the ice or measurements from an aircraft or a helicopter. Going on the ice is not always possible in the Arctic from the perspective of human security. Planes and helicopters are just some of the types of large vessels. For smaller vessels we proposed a method of using unmanned aerial vehicles. Being of low price they do the work promptly. In this work we used a radiointerferential method based on fast Fourier transform implemented in software. We built a mathematical model on the basis of which a prototype was created. For the study the frequencies of 2, 3 and 4 MHz were used. The method was tested on ice samples with a thickness from 5 to 25 cm. The measurement error didn't exceed 12 %. With increasing frequency the error also increased. The snow on the ice surface had no significant influence on the measurement accuracy. Laboratory tests were successful and the confirmation of the results in the field studies is required. In prospective, this method can be applied to measure the ice thickness of up to 25 m.

Retrieval of the thickness of undeformed sea ice from simulated C-band compact polarimetric SAR images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Xi; Dierking, Wolfgang; Zhang, Jie; Meng, Junmin; Lang, Haitao

2016-07-01

In this paper we introduce a parameter for the retrieval of the thickness of undeformed first-year sea ice that is specifically adapted to compact polarimetric (CP) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The parameter is denoted as the "CP ratio". In model simulations we investigated the sensitivity of the CP ratio to the dielectric constant, ice thickness, ice surface roughness, and radar incidence angle. From the results of the simulations we deduced optimal sea ice conditions and radar incidence angles for the ice thickness retrieval. C-band SAR data acquired over the Labrador Sea in circular transmit and linear receive (CTLR) mode were generated from RADARSAT-2 quad-polarization images. In comparison with results from helicopter-borne measurements, we tested different empirical equations for the retrieval of ice thickness. An exponential fit between the CP ratio and ice thickness provides the most reliable results. Based on a validation using other compact polarimetric SAR images from the same region, we found a root mean square (rms) error of 8 cm and a maximum correlation coefficient of 0.94 for the retrieval procedure when applying it to level ice between 0.1 and 0.8 m thick.

Sea Ice Freeboard and Thickness from the 2013 IceBridge ATM and DMS Data in Ross Sea, Antarctica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xie, H.; Tian, L.; Tang, J.; Ackley, S. F.

2016-12-01

In November (20, 21, 27, and 28) 2013, NASA's IceBridge mission flew over the Ross Sea, Antarctica and collected important sea ice data with the ATM and DMS for the first time. We will present our methods to derive the local sea level and total freeboard for ice thickness retrieval from these two datasets. The methods include (1) leads classification from DMS data using an automated lead detection method, (2) potential leads from the reflectance of less than 0.25 from the ATM laser shots of L1B data, (3) local sea level retrieval based on these qualified ATM laser shots (L1B) within the DMS-derived leads (after outliers removal from the mean ± 2 standard deviation of these ATM elevations), (4) establishment of an empirical equation of local sea level as a function of distance from the starting point of each IceBridge flight, (5) total freeboard retrieval from the ATM L2 elevations by subtracting the local sea level derived from the empirical equation, and (6) ice thickness retrieval. The ice thickness derived from this method will be analyzed and compared with ICESat data (2003-2009) and other available data for the same region at the similar time period. Possible change and potential reasons will be identified and discussed.

The Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network (ALISON): Hands-on Experiential K- 12 Learning in the North

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morris, K.; Jeffries, M.

2008-12-01

The Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network (ALISON) was initiated by Martin Jeffries (UAF polar scientist), Delena Norris-Tull (UAF education professor) and Ron Reihl (middle school science teacher, Fairbanks North Star Borough School District). The snow and ice measurement protocols were developed in 1999-2000 at the Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) by Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska scientists and tested by home school teacher/students in winter 2001-2002 in Fairbanks, AK. The project was launched in 2002 with seven sites around the state (PFRR, Fairbanks, Barrow, Mystic Lake, Nome, Shageluk and Wasilla). The project reached its broadest distribution in 2005-2006 with 22 sites. The schools range from urban (Wasilla) to primarily Alaska native villages (Shageluk). They include public schools, charter schools, home schooled students and parents, informal educators and citizen scientists. The grade levels range from upper elementary to high school. Well over a thousand students have participated in ALISON since its inception. Equipment is provided to the observers at each site. Measurements include ice thickness (with a hot wire ice thickness gauge), snow depth and snow temperature (surface and base). Snow samples are taken and snow density derived. Snow variables are used to calculate the conductive heat flux through the ice and snow cover to the atmosphere. All data are available on the Web site. The students and teachers are scientific partners in the study of lake ice processes, contributing to new scientific knowledge and understanding while also learning science by doing science with familiar and abundant materials. Each autumn, scientists visit each location to work with the teachers and students, helping them to set up the study site, showing them how to make the measurements and enter the data into the computer, and discussing snow, ice and polar environmental change. A number of 'veteran' teachers are now setting up the study sites on

Optimizing Observations of Sea Ice Thickness and Snow Depth in the Arctic

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-09-30

changes in the thickness of sea ice, glaciers , and ice sheets. These observations are critical for predicting the response of Earth’s polar ice to...Arctic Sea Ice Conditions in Spring 2009 - 2013 Prior to Melt , Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 5888-5893, doi: 10.1002/2013GL058011. [published, refereed

Role of ice sheet dynamics in the collapse of the early-Holocene Laurentide Ice Sheet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matero, I. S. O.; Gregoire, L. J.; Cornford, S. L.; Ivanovic, R. F.

2017-12-01

The last stage of the deglaciation of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) during the early Holocene Thermal Maximum ( 9000 to 7000 years ago) provides an analogy and insight to the possible responses of contemporary ice sheets in a warming climate. What makes LIS particularly interesting is that meltwater from the collapse of an ice saddle over Hudson Bay was recently shown to be the primary forcing for the period of abrupt northern hemisphere cooling known as the 8.2 ka event. The evolution of the LIS during this period was likely influenced by its interaction with marginal lakes and the ocean, and its major ice stream, which exported ice towards Hudson Strait. Accurately simulating the early Holocene LIS evolution thus requires a model such as BISICLES, capable of accurately and efficiently resolving ice stream dynamics and grounding line migration thanks to the combined use of higher order physics and adaptive mesh refinement. We drive the BISICLES model using a positive degree day mass balance scheme with monthly precipitation and temperature from the HadCM3 climate model under climatic conditions from 10,000 to 8,000 years ago. We test the effect of varying the initial topographies and ice thicknesses from different timeslices in the ICE-6Gc reconstruction. We also test different parameterisations for the basal friction based on the thicknesses of the underlying sediments. These simulations evaluate the role of the Hudson Strait ice stream, ice sheet dynamics and interactions with the adjacent proglacial Lake Agassiz and North Atlantic Ocean in the collapse of the LIS. Our results highlight that the choice of parameterisation for basal friction has major effects on ice sheet dynamics and evolution.

About uncertainties in sea ice thickness retrieval from satellite radar altimetry: results from the ESA-CCI Sea Ice ECV Project Round Robin Exercise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kern, S.; Khvorostovsky, K.; Skourup, H.; Rinne, E.; Parsakhoo, Z. S.; Djepa, V.; Wadhams, P.; Sandven, S.

2014-03-01

One goal of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative sea ice Essential Climate Variable project is to provide a quality controlled 20 year long data set of Arctic Ocean winter-time sea ice thickness distribution. An important step to achieve this goal is to assess the accuracy of sea ice thickness retrieval based on satellite radar altimetry. For this purpose a data base is created comprising sea ice freeboard derived from satellite radar altimetry between 1993 and 2012 and collocated observations of snow and sea ice freeboard from Operation Ice Bridge (OIB) and CryoSat Validation Experiment (CryoVEx) air-borne campaigns, of sea ice draft from moored and submarine Upward Looking Sonar (ULS), and of snow depth from OIB campaigns, Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer aboard EOS (AMSR-E) and the Warren Climatology (Warren et al., 1999). An inter-comparison of the snow depth data sets stresses the limited usefulness of Warren climatology snow depth for freeboard-to-thickness conversion under current Arctic Ocean conditions reported in other studies. This is confirmed by a comparison of snow freeboard measured during OIB and CryoVEx and snow freeboard computed from radar altimetry. For first-year ice the agreement between OIB and AMSR-E snow depth within 0.02 m suggests AMSR-E snow depth as an appropriate alternative. Different freeboard-to-thickness and freeboard-to-draft conversion approaches are realized. The mean observed ULS sea ice draft agrees with the mean sea ice draft computed from radar altimetry within the uncertainty bounds of the data sets involved. However, none of the realized approaches is able to reproduce the seasonal cycle in sea ice draft observed by moored ULS satisfactorily. A sensitivity analysis of the freeboard-to-thickness conversion suggests: in order to obtain sea ice thickness as accurate as 0.5 m from radar altimetry, besides a freeboard estimate with centimetre accuracy, an ice-type dependent sea ice density is as mandatory

Thermodynamic and dynamic ice thickness contributions in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in NEMO-LIM2 numerical simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Xianmin; Sun, Jingfan; Chan, Ting On; Myers, Paul G.

2018-04-01

Sea ice thickness evolution within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) is of great interest to science, as well as local communities and their economy. In this study, based on the NEMO numerical framework including the LIM2 sea ice module, simulations at both 1/4 and 1/12° horizontal resolution were conducted from 2002 to 2016. The model captures well the general spatial distribution of ice thickness in the CAA region, with very thick sea ice (˜ 4 m and thicker) in the northern CAA, thick sea ice (2.5 to 3 m) in the west-central Parry Channel and M'Clintock Channel, and thin ( < 2 m) ice (in winter months) on the east side of CAA (e.g., eastern Parry Channel, Baffin Island coast) and in the channels in southern areas. Even though the configurations still have resolution limitations in resolving the exact observation sites, simulated ice thickness compares reasonably (seasonal cycle and amplitudes) with weekly Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) New Ice Thickness Program data at first-year landfast ice sites except at the northern sites with high concentration of old ice. At 1/4 to 1/12° scale, model resolution does not play a significant role in the sea ice simulation except to improve local dynamics because of better coastline representation. Sea ice growth is decomposed into thermodynamic and dynamic (including all non-thermodynamic processes in the model) contributions to study the ice thickness evolution. Relatively smaller thermodynamic contribution to ice growth between December and the following April is found in the thick and very thick ice regions, with larger contributions in the thin ice-covered region. No significant trend in winter maximum ice volume is found in the northern CAA and Baffin Bay while a decline (r2 ≈ 0.6, p < 0.01) is simulated in Parry Channel region. The two main contributors (thermodynamic growth and lateral transport) have high interannual variabilities which largely balance each other, so that maximum ice volume can

Antarctic ice sheet thickness estimation using the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio method with single-station seismic ambient noise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Peng; Li, Zhiwei; Li, Fei; Yang, Yuande; Hao, Weifeng; Bao, Feng

2018-03-01

We report on a successful application of the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (H / V) method, generally used to investigate the subsurface velocity structures of the shallow crust, to estimate the Antarctic ice sheet thickness for the first time. Using three-component, five-day long, seismic ambient noise records gathered from more than 60 temporary seismic stations located on the Antarctic ice sheet, the ice thickness measured at each station has comparable accuracy to the Bedmap2 database. Preliminary analysis revealed that 60 out of 65 seismic stations on the ice sheet obtained clear peak frequencies (f0) related to the ice sheet thickness in the H / V spectrum. Thus, assuming that the isotropic ice layer lies atop a high velocity half-space bedrock, the ice sheet thickness can be calculated by a simple approximation formula. About half of the calculated ice sheet thicknesses were consistent with the Bedmap2 ice thickness values. To further improve the reliability of ice thickness measurements, two-type models were built to fit the observed H / V spectrum through non-linear inversion. The two-type models represent the isotropic structures of single- and two-layer ice sheets, and the latter depicts the non-uniform, layered characteristics of the ice sheet widely distributed in Antarctica. The inversion results suggest that the ice thicknesses derived from the two-layer ice models were in good concurrence with the Bedmap2 ice thickness database, and that ice thickness differences between the two were within 300 m at almost all stations. Our results support previous finding that the Antarctic ice sheet is stratified. Extensive data processing indicates that the time length of seismic ambient noise records can be shortened to two hours for reliable ice sheet thickness estimation using the H / V method. This study extends the application fields of the H / V method and provides an effective and independent way to measure ice sheet thickness in Antarctica.

Beach profile modification and sediment transport by ice: an overlooked process on Lake Michigan

USGS Publications Warehouse

Barnes, P.W.; Kempema, E.W.; Reimnitz, E.; McCormick, M.; Weber, W.S.; Hayden, E.C.

1993-01-01

Coastal lake ice includes a belt of mobile crash and slush ice and a stable nearshore-ice complex (NIC). Sediment concentrations indicate that the NIC and the belt of brash and slush contains 180 to 280 t (113 to 175m3) of sand per kilometer of coast. This static sediment load is roughly equivalent to the average amount of sand eroded from the bluffs and to the amount accumulating in the deep lake basin each year. Sediment is being rafted alongshore in the mobile brash and slush at rates of 10 to 30 cm/sec. -from Authors

Estimation of Sea Ice Thickness Distributions through the Combination of Snow Depth and Satellite Laser Altimetry Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kurtz, Nathan T.; Markus, Thorsten; Cavalieri, Donald J.; Sparling, Lynn C.; Krabill, William B.; Gasiewski, Albin J.; Sonntag, John G.

2009-01-01

Combinations of sea ice freeboard and snow depth measurements from satellite data have the potential to provide a means to derive global sea ice thickness values. However, large differences in spatial coverage and resolution between the measurements lead to uncertainties when combining the data. High resolution airborne laser altimeter retrievals of snow-ice freeboard and passive microwave retrievals of snow depth taken in March 2006 provide insight into the spatial variability of these quantities as well as optimal methods for combining high resolution satellite altimeter measurements with low resolution snow depth data. The aircraft measurements show a relationship between freeboard and snow depth for thin ice allowing the development of a method for estimating sea ice thickness from satellite laser altimetry data at their full spatial resolution. This method is used to estimate snow and ice thicknesses for the Arctic basin through the combination of freeboard data from ICESat, snow depth data over first-year ice from AMSR-E, and snow depth over multiyear ice from climatological data. Due to the non-linear dependence of heat flux on ice thickness, the impact on heat flux calculations when maintaining the full resolution of the ICESat data for ice thickness estimates is explored for typical winter conditions. Calculations of the basin-wide mean heat flux and ice growth rate using snow and ice thickness values at the 70 m spatial resolution of ICESat are found to be approximately one-third higher than those calculated from 25 km mean ice thickness values.

Lipophilic pigments from the benthos of a perennially ice-covered Antarctic lake

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Palmisano, A. C.; Wharton, R. A. Jr; Cronin, S. E.; Des Marais, D. J.; Wharton RA, J. r. (Principal Investigator)

1989-01-01

The benthos of a perennially ice-covered Antarctic lake, Lake Hoare, contained three distinct 'signatures' of lipophilic pigments. Cyanobacterial mats found in the moat at the periphery of the lake were dominated by the carotenoid myxoxanthophyll; carotenoids: chlorophyll a ratios in this high light environment ranged from 3 to 6.8. Chlorophyll c and fucoxanthin, pigments typical of golden-brown algae, were found at 10 to 20 m depths where the benthos is aerobic. Anaerobic benthic sediments at 20 to 30 m depths were characterized by a third pigment signature dominated by a carotenoid, tentatively identified as alloxanthin from planktonic cryptomonads, and by phaeophytin b from senescent green algae. Pigments were not found associated with alternating organic and sediment layers. As microzooplankton grazers are absent from this closed system and transformation rates are reduced at low temperatures, the benthos beneath the lake ice appears to contain a record of past phytoplankton blooms undergoing decay.

The contribution of wind wave changes on diminishing ice period in Lake Pyhäjärvi during the last half-century.

PubMed

Wu, Tingfeng; Qin, Boqiang; Zhu, Guangwei; Huttula, Timo; Lindfors, Antti; Ventelä, Anne-Mari; Sheng, Yongwei; Ambrose, Richard F

2018-06-21

To address the contribution of long-term wind wave changes on diminishing ice period in Northern European lakes, an in situ observation of wind waves was conducted to calibrate a wind-wave numerical model for Lake Pyhäjärvi, which is the largest lake in southwest Finland. Using station-measured hydrometeorological data from 1963 to 2013 and model-simulated wind waves, correlation and regression analyses were conducted to assess the changing trend and main influences on ice period. Ice period in Lake Pyhäjärvi decreased significantly over 51 years (r = 0.47, P < 0.01). The analysis of main hydrometeorological factors to ice period showed that the significant air temperature rise is the main contributor for the diminishing of ice period in the lake. Besides air temperature, wind-induced waves can also weaken lake ice by increasing water mixing and lake ice breakage. The regression indicated that mean significant wave height in December and April was negatively related to ice period (r = - 0.48, P < 0.01). These results imply that long-term changes of wind waves related to climate change should be considered to fully understand the reduction of aquatic ice at high latitudes.

Deformation of the Batestown till of the Lake Michigan lobe, Laurentide ice sheet

USGS Publications Warehouse

Thomason, J.F.; Iverson, N.R.

2009-01-01

Deep, pervasive shear deformation of the bed to high strains (>100) may have been primarily responsible for flow and sediment transport of the Lake Michigan lobe of the Laurentide ice sheet. To test this hypothesis, we sampled at 0.2 m increments a basal till from one advance of the lobe (Batestown till) along vertical profiles and measured fabrics due to both anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility and sand-grain preferred orientation. Unlike past fabric studies, interpretations were guided by results of laboratory experiments in which this till was deformed in simple shear to high strains. Fabric strengths indicate that more than half of the till sampled has a <5% probability of having been sheared to moderate strains (7-30). Secular changes in fabric azimuth over the thickness of the till, probably due to changing ice-flow direction as the lobe receded, indicate that the bed accreted with time and that the depth of deformation of the bed did not exceed a few decimeters. Orientations of principal magnetic susceptibilities show that the state of strain was commonly complex, deviating from bed-parallel simple shear. Deformation is inferred to have been focused in shallow, temporally variable patches during till deposition from ice.

Selected satellite data on snow and ice in the Great Lakes basin 1972-73 /IFYGL/. [International Field Year for Great Lakes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wiesnet, D. R.; Mcginnis, D. F.; Forsyth, D. G.

1974-01-01

Three snow-extent maps of the Lake Ontario drainage basin were prepared from NOAA-2 satellite visible band images during the International Field Year for the Great Lakes. These maps are discussed and the satellite data are evaluated for snow-extent mapping. The value of ERTS-1 imagery and digital data is also discussed in relation to the Lake Ontario basin studies. ERTS-1 MSS data are excellent for ice identification and analysis but are not useful for forecasting where timely receipt of data is imperative. NOAA-2 VHRR data are timely but the lower resolution of the VHRR makes identification of certain ice features difficult. NOAA-2 VHRR is well suited for snow-extent maps and thermal maps of large areas such as the 19,000 sq-km Lake Ontario basin.

New age constraints for the Saalian glaciation in northern central Europe: Implications for the extent of ice sheets and related proglacial lake systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lang, Jörg; Lauer, Tobias; Winsemann, Jutta

2018-01-01

A comprehensive palaeogeographic reconstruction of ice sheets and related proglacial lake systems for the older Saalian glaciation in northern central Europe is presented, which is based on the integration of palaeo-ice flow data, till provenance, facies analysis, geomorphology and new luminescence ages of ice-marginal deposits. Three major ice advances with different ice-advance directions and source areas are indicated by palaeo-ice flow directions and till provenance. The first ice advance was characterised by a southwards directed ice flow and a dominance of clasts derived from southern Sweden. The second ice advance was initially characterised by an ice flow towards the southwest. Clasts are mainly derived from southern and central Sweden. The latest stage in the study area (third ice advance) was characterised by ice streaming (Hondsrug ice stream) in the west and a re-advance in the east. Clasts of this stage are mainly derived from eastern Fennoscandia. Numerical ages for the first ice advance are sparse, but may indicate a correlation with MIS 8 or early MIS 6. New pIRIR290 luminescence ages of ice-marginal deposits attributed to the second ice advance range from 175 ± 10 to 156 ± 24 ka and correlate with MIS 6. The ice sheets repeatedly blocked the main river-drainage pathways and led to the formation of extensive ice-dammed lakes. The formation of proglacial lakes was mainly controlled by ice-damming of river valleys and major bedrock spillways; therefore the lake levels and extends were very similar throughout the repeated ice advances. During deglaciation the lakes commonly increased in size and eventually drained successively towards the west and northwest into the Lower Rhine Embayment and the North Sea. Catastrophic lake-drainage events occurred when large overspill channels were suddenly opened. Ice-streaming at the end of the older Saalian glaciation was probably triggered by major lake-drainage events.

Towards decadal time series of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice thickness from radar altimetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hendricks, S.; Rinne, E. J.; Paul, S.; Ricker, R.; Skourup, H.; Kern, S.; Sandven, S.

2016-12-01

The CryoSat-2 mission has demonstrated the value of radar altimetry to assess the interannual variability and short-term trends of Arctic sea ice over the existing observational record of 6 winter seasons. CryoSat-2 is a particular successful mission for sea ice mass balance assessment due to its novel radar altimeter concept and orbit configuration, but radar altimetry data is available since 1993 from the ERS-1/2 and Envisat missions. Combining these datasets promises a decadal climate data record of sea ice thickness, but inter-mission biases must be taken into account due to the evolution of radar altimeters and the impact of changing sea ice conditions on retrieval algorithm parametrizations. The ESA Climate Change Initiative on Sea Ice aims to extent the list of data records for Essential Climate Variables (ECV's) with a consistent time series of sea ice thickness from available radar altimeter data. We report on the progress of the algorithm development and choices for auxiliary data sets for sea ice thickness retrieval in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. Particular challenges are the classification of surface types and freeboard retrieval based on radar waveforms with significantly varying footprint sizes. In addition, auxiliary data sets, e.g. for snow depth, are far less developed in the Antarctic and we will discuss the expected skill of the sea ice thickness ECV's in both hemispheres.

Effect of the Inhomogeneity of Ice Crystals on Retrieving Ice Cloud Optical Thickness and Effective Particle Size

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Xie, Yu; Minnis, Patrick; Hu, Yong X.; Kattawar, George W.; Yang, Ping

2008-01-01

Spherical or spheroidal air bubbles are generally trapped in the formation of rapidly growing ice crystals. In this study the single-scattering properties of inhomogeneous ice crystals containing air bubbles are investigated. Specifically, a computational model based on an improved geometric-optics method (IGOM) has been developed to simulate the scattering of light by randomly oriented hexagonal ice crystals containing spherical or spheroidal air bubbles. A combination of the ray-tracing technique and the Monte Carlo method is used. The effect of the air bubbles within ice crystals is to smooth the phase functions, diminish the 22deg and 46deg halo peaks, and substantially reduce the backscatter relative to bubble-free particles. These features vary with the number, sizes, locations and shapes of the air bubbles within ice crystals. Moreover, the asymmetry factors of inhomogeneous ice crystals decrease as the volume of air bubbles increases. Cloud reflectance lookup tables were generated at wavelengths 0.65 m and 2.13 m with different air-bubble conditions to examine the impact of the bubbles on retrieving ice cloud optical thickness and effective particle size. The reflectances simulated for inhomogeneous ice crystals are slightly larger than those computed for homogenous ice crystals at a wavelength of 0.65 microns. Thus, the retrieved cloud optical thicknesses are reduced by employing inhomogeneous ice cloud models. At a wavelength of 2.13 microns, including air bubbles in ice cloud models may also increase the reflectance. This effect implies that the retrieved effective particle sizes for inhomogeneous ice crystals are larger than those retrieved for homogeneous ice crystals, particularly, in the case of large air bubbles.

Changes in winter air temperatures near Lake Michigan, 1851-1993, as determined from regional lake-ice records

USGS Publications Warehouse

Assel, R.A.; Robertson, Dale M.

1995-01-01

Records of freezeup and breakup dates for Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan, and Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, are among the longest ice records available near the Great Lakes, beginning in 185 1 and 1855, respectively. The timing of freezeup and breakup results from an integration of meteorological conditions (primarily air temperature) that occur before these events. Changes in the average timing of these ice-events are translated into changes in air temperature by the use of empirical and process-driven models. The timing of freezeup and breakup at the two locations represents an integration of air temperatures over slightly different seasons (months). Records from both locations indicate that the early winter period before about 1890 was - 15°C cooler than the early winter period after that time; the mean temperature has, however, remained relatively constant since about 1890. Changes in breakup dates demonstrate a similar 1.0-1 .5”C increase in late winter and early spring air temperatures about 1890. More recent average breakup dates at both locations have been earlier than during 1890-1940, indicating an additional warming of 1.2”C in March since about 1940 and a warming of 1 . 1°C in January-March since about 1980. Ice records at these sites will continue to provide an early indication of the anticipated climatic warming, not only because of the large response of ice cover to small changes in air temperature but also because these records integrate climatic conditions during the seasons (winter-spring) when most warming is forecast to occur. Future reductions in ice cover may strongly affect the winter ecology of the Great Lakes by reducing the stable environment required by various levels of the food chain. 

To determine ice layer thickness of Europa by high energy neutrino

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shoji, D.; Kurita, K.; Tanaka, H. K.

2010-12-01

Europa, the second closest Galilean satellite is one of the targets which are suspected to have an internal ocean. Detection and characterization of the internal ocean is one of the main subjects for Europa orbiter exploration. Although the gravitational data has shown the thickness of the surface H2O layer of 80-170km[1], it can not determine the phase of H2O. The variations in the magnetic field associated with the induced current in the internal ocean can determine the thickness of the layer of ice if satellite's orbits satisfy the required conditions. Observations of tidal amplitude forced by Jupiter can also resolve the thickness of the surface lithosphere[2]. At moment because of the lack of observational constraints there exist two contrasting models:thick ice layer model and thin model. Here we propose new method to detect the ocean directly based on the radiation by high energy neutrino interacted with matter. Schaefer et al[3] have proposed a similar method to determine ice layer thickness. We will focus on the detection of internal ocean for Europa and present the method is suitable for actual situations of Europa exploration by numerical simulations. Neutrino is famous for its traveling at long distance without any interaction with matter. When high energy neutrinos traverse in Europa hadronic showers are produced by the weak interaction with the nucleons that makes the body of Europa. These hadronic showers induces excess electrons. Because of these excess electrons, Cherenkov photons are emitted. When this radiation occurs in the ice layer, radiations whose wave length is over 10cm should be coherent because the scale of the shower becomes small (a few cm) in the ice, which is called as Askaryan effect[3]. Thus, the intensity of the radiation whose frequency is a few GHz should be enhanced. Since ice has a much longer attenuation length than water, the radiations which occur in the surface ice layer could be detected by the antenna outside Europa but

Niche specialization of bacteria in permanently ice-covered lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica.

PubMed

Kwon, Miye; Kim, Mincheol; Takacs-Vesbach, Cristina; Lee, Jaejin; Hong, Soon Gyu; Kim, Sang Jong; Priscu, John C; Kim, Ok-Sun

2017-06-01

Perennially ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, are chemically stratified with depth and have distinct biological gradients. Despite long-term research on these unique environments, data on the structure of the microbial communities in the water columns of these lakes are scarce. Here, we examined bacterial diversity in five ice-covered Antarctic lakes by 16S rRNA gene-based pyrosequencing. Distinct communities were present in each lake, reflecting the unique biogeochemical characteristics of these environments. Further, certain bacterial lineages were confined exclusively to specific depths within each lake. For example, candidate division WM88 occurred solely at a depth of 15 m in Lake Fryxell, whereas unknown lineages of Chlorobi were found only at a depth of 18 m in Lake Miers, and two distinct classes of Firmicutes inhabited East and West Lobe Bonney at depths of 30 m. Redundancy analysis revealed that community variation of bacterioplankton could be explained by the distinct conditions of each lake and depth; in particular, assemblages from layers beneath the chemocline had biogeochemical associations that differed from those in the upper layers. These patterns of community composition may represent bacterial adaptations to the extreme and unique biogeochemical gradients of ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. © 2017 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Retrieval of the thickness of undeformed sea ice from C-band compact polarimetric SAR images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, X.; Dierking, W.; Zhang, J.; Meng, J. M.; Lang, H. T.

2015-10-01

In this paper we introduce a parameter for the retrieval of the thickness of undeformed first-year sea ice that is specifically adapted to compact polarimetric SAR images. The parameter is denoted as "CP-Ratio". In model simulations we investigated the sensitivity of CP-Ratio to the dielectric constant, thickness, surface roughness, and incidence angle. From the results of the simulations we deduced optimal conditions for the thickness retrieval. On the basis of C-band CTLR SAR data, which were generated from Radarsat-2 quad-polarization images acquired jointly with helicopter-borne sea ice thickness measurements in the region of the Sea of Labrador, we tested empirical equations for thickness retrieval. An exponential fit between CP-Ratio and ice thickness provides the most reliable results. Based on a validation using other compact polarimetric SAR images from the same region we found a root mean square (rms) error of 8 cm and a maximum correlation coefficient of 0.92 for the retrieval procedure when applying it on level ice of 0.9 m mean thickness.

Influence of the Little Ice Age on the biological structure of lakes in South West Greenland

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McGowan, S.; Hogan, E. J.; Jones, V.; Anderson, N. J.; Simpson, G.

2013-12-01

Arctic lakes are considered to be particularly sensitive to environmental change, with biological remains in lake sediment records being interpreted as reflecting climate forcing. However the influence that differences in catchment properties and lake morphometries have on the sedimentary record is rarely considered. We investigated sediment cores from three lakes located close to the inland ice sheet margin in the Kangerlussuaq area of South West Greenland but within a few kilometres of one another. This regional replication allowed for direct comparisons of biological change in lakes exposed to identical environmental pressures (cooling, increased wind speeds) over the past c.2000 years. Sedimentary pigments were used as a proxy for whole-lake production and to investigate differences in phytoplankton community structure whilst fossil diatom assemblages were studied to determine differences in ecological responses during this time. We noted several major effects of the Little Ice Age cooling (LIA, c. 1400-1850AD). The organic content of sediments in all three lakes declined, and this effect was most pronounced in lakes closest to the inland ice sheet margin, which suggests that aeolian inputs derived from the glacial outwash plains (sandurs), and wind-scouring of the thin catchment soils by strong katabatic winds associated with the regional cooling might have both contributed to this sedimentary change. During the LIA total algal production (as indicated by chlorophyll and carotenoid pigments) was lower in all three lakes, most likely because of extended ice-cover and shorter growing seasons, and the ratio of planktonic: benthic diatom taxa increased, possibly because of lower light availability or fertilization from loess material. Despite this coherence in lake response to the LIA, diatom community composition changes in individual lakes differed, reflecting individual lake morphometry and catchment characteristics. These findings highlight the importance of

Final Results From the Circumarctic Lakes Observation Network (CALON) Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hinkel, K. M.; Arp, C. D.; Eisner, W. R.; Frey, K. E.; Grosse, G.; Jones, B. M.; Kim, C.; Lenters, J. D.; Liu, H.; Townsend-Small, A.

2015-12-01

Since 2012, the physical and biogeochemical properties of ~60 lakes in northern Alaska have been investigated under CALON, a project to document landscape-scale variability of Arctic lakes in permafrost terrain. The network has ten nodes along two latitudinal transects extending inland 200 km from the Arctic Ocean. A meteorological station is deployed at each node and six representative lakes instrumented and continuously monitored, with winter and summer visits for synoptic assessment of lake conditions. Over the 4-year period, winter and summer climatology varied to create a rich range of lake responses over a short period. For example, winter 2012-13 was very cold with a thin snowpack producing thick ice across the region. Subsequent years had relatively warm winters, yet regionally variable snow resulted in differing gradients of ice thickness. Ice-out timing was unusually late in 2014 and unusually early in 2015. Lakes are typically well-mixed and largely isothermal, with minor thermal stratification occurring in deeper lakes during calm, sunny periods in summer. Lake water temperature records and morphometric data were used to estimate the ground thermal condition beneath 28 lakes. Application of a thermal equilibrium steady-state model suggests a talik penetrating the permafrost under many larger lakes, but lake geochemical data do not indicate a significant contribution of subpermafrost groundwater. Biogeochemical data reveal distinct spatial and seasonal variability in chlorophyll biomass, chromophoric dissolved organic carbon (CDOM), and major cations/anions. Generally, waters sampled beneath ice in April had distinctly higher concentrations of inorganic solutes and methane compared with August. Chlorophyll concentrations and CDOM absorption were higher in April, suggesting significant biological/biogeochemical activity under lake ice. Lakes are a positive source of methane in summer, and some also emit nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. As part of the

Ice shelf thickness change from 2010 to 2017

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogg, A.; Shepherd, A.; Gilbert, L.; Muir, A. S.

2017-12-01

Floating ice shelves fringe 74 % of Antarctica's coastline, providing a direct link between the ice sheet and the surrounding oceans. Over the last 25 years, ice shelves have retreated, thinned, and collapsed catastrophically. While change in the mass of floating ice shelves has only a modest steric impact on the rate of sea-level rise, their loss can affect the mass balance of the grounded ice-sheet by influencing the rate of ice flow inland, due to the buttressing effect. Here we use CryoSat-2 altimetry data to map the detailed pattern of ice shelf thickness change in Antarctica. We exploit the dense spatial sampling and repeat coverage provided by the CryoSat-2 synthetic aperture radar interferometric mode (SARIn) to investigate data acquired between 2010 to the present day. We find that ice shelf thinning rates can exhibit large fluctuations over short time periods, and that the improved spatial resolution of CryoSat-2 enables us to resolve the spatial pattern of thinning with ever greater detail in Antarctica. In the Amundsen Sea, ice shelves at the terminus of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers have thinned at rates in excess of 5 meters per year for more than two decades. We observe the highest rates of basal melting near to the ice sheet grounding line, reinforcing the importance of high resolution datasets. On the Antarctic Peninsula, in contrast to the 3.8 m per decade of thinning observed since 1992, we measure an increase in the surface elevation of the Larsen-C Ice-Shelf during the CryoSat-2 period.

Supraglacial lakes on Himalayan debris-covered glacier (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sakai, A.; Fujita, K.

2013-12-01

Debris-covered glaciers are common in many of the world's mountain ranges, including in the Himalayas. Himalayan debris-covered glacier also contain abundant glacial lakes, including both proglacial and supraglacial types. We have revealed that heat absorption through supraglacial lakes was about 7 times greater than that averaged over the whole debris-covered zone. The heat budget analysis elucidated that at least half of the heat absorbed through the water surface was released with water outflow from the lakes, indicating that the warm water enlarge englacial conduits and produce internal ablation. We observed some portions at debris-covered area has caved at the end of melting season, and ice cliff has exposed at the side of depression. Those depression has suggested that roof of expanded water channels has collapsed, leading to the formation of ice cliffs and new lakes, which would accelerate the ablation of debris-covered glaciers. Almost glacial lakes on the debris-covered glacier are partially surrounded by ice cliffs. We observed that relatively small lakes had non-calving, whereas, calving has occurred at supraglacial lakes with fetch larger than 80 m, and those lakes expand rapidly. In the Himalayas, thick sediments at the lake bottom insulates glacier ice and lake water, then the lake water tends to have higher temperature (2-4 degrees C). Therefore, thermal undercutting at ice cliff is important for calving processes in the glacial lake expansion. We estimated and subaqueous ice melt rates during the melt and freeze seasons under simple geomorphologic conditions. In particular, we focused on valley wind-driven water currents in various fetches during the melt season. Our results demonstrate that the subaqueous ice melt rate exceeds the ice-cliff melt rate above the water surface when the fetch is larger than 20 m with the water temperature of 2-4 degrees C. Calculations suggest that onset of calving due to thermal undercutting is controlled by water

Validation of Airborne FMCW Radar Measurements of Snow Thickness Over Sea Ice in Antarctica

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Galin, Natalia; Worby, Anthony; Markus, Thorsten; Leuschen, Carl; Gogineni, Prasad

2012-01-01

Antarctic sea ice and its snow cover are integral components of the global climate system, yet many aspects of their vertical dimensions are poorly understood, making their representation in global climate models poor. Remote sensing is the key to monitoring the dynamic nature of sea ice and its snow cover. Reliable and accurate snow thickness data are currently a highly sought after data product. Remotely sensed snow thickness measurements can provide an indication of precipitation levels, predicted to increase with effects of climate change in the polar regions. Airborne techniques provide a means for regional-scale estimation of snow depth and distribution. Accurate regional-scale snow thickness data will also facilitate an increase in the accuracy of sea ice thickness retrieval from satellite altimeter freeboard estimates. The airborne data sets are easier to validate with in situ measurements and are better suited to validating satellite algorithms when compared with in situ techniques. This is primarily due to two factors: better chance of getting coincident in situ and airborne data sets and the tractability of comparison between an in situ data set and the airborne data set averaged over the footprint of the antennas. A 28-GHz frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar loaned by the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets to the Australian Antarctic Division is used to measure snow thickness over sea ice in East Antarctica. Provided with the radar design parameters, the expected performance parameters of the radar are summarized. The necessary conditions for unambiguous identification of the airsnow and snowice layers for the radar are presented. Roughnesses of the snow and ice surfaces are found to be dominant determinants in the effectiveness of layer identification for this radar. Finally, this paper presents the first in situ validated snow thickness estimates over sea ice in Antarctica derived from an FMCW radar on a helicopterborne platform.

ALBEDO MODELS FOR SNOW AND ICE ON A FRESHWATER LAKE. (R824801)

EPA Science Inventory

Abstract

Snow and ice albedo measurements were taken over a freshwater lake in Minnesota for three months during the winter of 1996_¯1997 for use in a winter lake water quality model. The mean albedo of new snow was measured as 0.83±0.028, while the...

A Lower Limit on the Thickness of Europa's Ice Shell from Numerical Simulations of Impact Cratering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Turtle, E. P.; Ivanov, B. A.

2001-12-01

If Europa has an ice-covered, liquid water ocean, the thickness of the ice shell can be tested by analyzing the impact crater morphologies revealed by Galileo images. Several of Europa's 28 primary impact structures have morphologies typical of complex impact craters on other planetary bodies: terraced rims, flat floors, and central peaks [1]. To constrain the minimum ice thickness necessary to reproduce the observed complex crater morphologies, we have performed numerical simulations, using the modified SALE-2D code [2], of the formation of impact craters in ice layers with thicknesses ranging from 5 to 11 km overlying liquid water. The target ice has ice strength properties from published laboratory data [3] with a gradual decrease towards the base of the ice as the temperature approaches the melting point. The projectile parameters were chosen to produce a 10 km diameter crater in thick ice. We find that ice layers less than 7 km thick are not sufficient to prevent an outburst of liquid water during collapse of the transient cavity. At thicknesses of 8 and 9 km we observe a boundary regime: crater collapse produces a flat or upward-domed floor, however the water under the crater center does not reach the surface. In ice greater than 10 km thick a normal transient cavity forms. These results indicate that the ice thickness, at the times and locations of complex crater formation, must have been comparable to the diameters of the transient craters, the largest of which was between 11.9 and 18.5 km [1]. Implementation of additional mechanisms such as acoustic fluidization and creep may affect the shape of the final crater produced in our simulations: acoustic fluidization can produce central peak and peak-ring craters [4], and creep may result in a flattened crater. We are currently investigating the influence of these processes on the final crater morphology. References: [1] Moore et al., Icarus 151, 2001. [2] Ivanov et al., GSA Spec. Pap., in press. [3] Beeman et

Using MODIS data to estimate sea ice thickness in the Bohai Sea (China) in the 2009-2010 winter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Su, Hua; Wang, Yunpeng

2012-10-01

To estimate sea ice thickness over a large spatial scale is a challenge. In this paper, we propose a direct approach to effectively estimate sea ice thickness over a large spatial area of the Bohai Sea using EOS MODIS data. It is based on the model of an exponential relation between albedo and thickness of sea ice. Eighteen images of EOS MODIS L1B data in the 2009-2010 winter were used to estimate the sea ice thickness and to monitor its spatiotemporal evolution in the Bohai Sea. The estimated thickness results are in accordance with results based on the Lebedev and Zubov empirical models as well as the forecasting data from the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre of China. Model correlation coefficients (R2= 0.864 and 0.858) and close similarity in thickness prediction attest to the reliability and applicability of the proposed method. The average ice thickness of the whole Bohai Sea ranged from 3 to 21 cm, with an estimated maximum about 40 cm in Liaodong Bay. Multiple-temporal maps of sea-ice thickness show that the sea ice formed initially along the coastline, and gradually expanded away from the shore. Sea ice first appeared in the Liaodong Bay, and hugged the coast southwards to Bohai and Laizhou Bay. During melting the inverse sequence occurred. Our results also show that sea ice coverage and thickness are significantly correlated with the value ofθ, the difference between cumulative FDD (Freezing Degree Days) and TDD (Thawing Degree Days).

Preliminary Cosmogenic Surface Exposure Ages on Laurentide Ice-sheet Retreat and Opening of the Eastern Lake Agassiz Outlets