Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment

We report results from a field experiment investigating the influence of volcanic tephra coverage on glacier ablation. These influences are known to be significantly different from those of moraine debris on glaciers due to the contrasting grain size distribution and thermal conductivity. Thus far,...

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Published in:Earth System Science Data
Main Authors: Möller, Rebecca, Möller, Marco, Kukla, Peter A., Schneider, Christoph
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-53-2018
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/10/53/2018/
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spelling ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:essd59856 2023-05-15T16:09:30+02:00 Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment Möller, Rebecca Möller, Marco Kukla, Peter A. Schneider, Christoph 2019-02-05 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-53-2018 https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/10/53/2018/ eng eng doi:10.5194/essd-10-53-2018 https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/10/53/2018/ eISSN: 1866-3516 Text 2019 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-53-2018 2020-07-20T16:23:29Z We report results from a field experiment investigating the influence of volcanic tephra coverage on glacier ablation. These influences are known to be significantly different from those of moraine debris on glaciers due to the contrasting grain size distribution and thermal conductivity. Thus far, the influences of tephra deposits on glacier ablation have rarely been studied. For the experiment, artificial plots of two different tephra types from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes were installed on a snow-covered glacier surface of Vatnajökull ice cap, Iceland. Snow-surface lowering and atmospheric conditions were monitored in summer 2015 and compared to a tephra-free reference site. For each of the two volcanic tephra types, three plots of variable thickness ( ∼ 1.5, ∼ 8.5 and ∼ 80 mm) were monitored. After limiting the records to a period of reliable measurements, a 50-day data set of hourly records was obtained, which can be downloaded from the Pangaea data repository ( https://www.pangaea.de doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.876656). The experiment shows a substantial increase in snow-surface lowering rates under the ∼ 1.5 and ∼ 8.5 mm tephra plots when compared to uncovered conditions. Under the thick tephra cover some insulating effects could be observed. These results are in contrast to other studies which depicted insulating effects for much thinner tephra coverage on bare-ice glacier surfaces. Differences between the influences of the two different petrological types of tephra exist but are negligible compared to the effect of tephra coverage overall. Text Eyjafjallajökull glacier Ice cap Iceland Vatnajökull Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Vatnajökull ENVELOPE(-16.823,-16.823,64.420,64.420) Earth System Science Data 10 1 53 60
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collection Copernicus Publications: E-Journals
op_collection_id ftcopernicus
language English
description We report results from a field experiment investigating the influence of volcanic tephra coverage on glacier ablation. These influences are known to be significantly different from those of moraine debris on glaciers due to the contrasting grain size distribution and thermal conductivity. Thus far, the influences of tephra deposits on glacier ablation have rarely been studied. For the experiment, artificial plots of two different tephra types from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes were installed on a snow-covered glacier surface of Vatnajökull ice cap, Iceland. Snow-surface lowering and atmospheric conditions were monitored in summer 2015 and compared to a tephra-free reference site. For each of the two volcanic tephra types, three plots of variable thickness ( ∼ 1.5, ∼ 8.5 and ∼ 80 mm) were monitored. After limiting the records to a period of reliable measurements, a 50-day data set of hourly records was obtained, which can be downloaded from the Pangaea data repository ( https://www.pangaea.de doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.876656). The experiment shows a substantial increase in snow-surface lowering rates under the ∼ 1.5 and ∼ 8.5 mm tephra plots when compared to uncovered conditions. Under the thick tephra cover some insulating effects could be observed. These results are in contrast to other studies which depicted insulating effects for much thinner tephra coverage on bare-ice glacier surfaces. Differences between the influences of the two different petrological types of tephra exist but are negligible compared to the effect of tephra coverage overall.
format Text
author Möller, Rebecca
Möller, Marco
Kukla, Peter A.
Schneider, Christoph
spellingShingle Möller, Rebecca
Möller, Marco
Kukla, Peter A.
Schneider, Christoph
Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment
author_facet Möller, Rebecca
Möller, Marco
Kukla, Peter A.
Schneider, Christoph
author_sort Möller, Rebecca
title Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment
title_short Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment
title_full Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment
title_fullStr Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment
title_full_unstemmed Modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn volcanoes, Iceland: an automated field experiment
title_sort modulation of glacier ablation by tephra coverage from eyjafjallajökull and grímsvötn volcanoes, iceland: an automated field experiment
publishDate 2019
url https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-53-2018
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/10/53/2018/
long_lat ENVELOPE(-16.823,-16.823,64.420,64.420)
geographic Vatnajökull
geographic_facet Vatnajökull
genre Eyjafjallajökull
glacier
Ice cap
Iceland
Vatnajökull
genre_facet Eyjafjallajökull
glacier
Ice cap
Iceland
Vatnajökull
op_source eISSN: 1866-3516
op_relation doi:10.5194/essd-10-53-2018
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/10/53/2018/
op_doi https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-53-2018
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