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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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-53-2018 https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/10/53/2018/ |
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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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Open Polar |
collection |
Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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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 |
container_title |
Earth System Science Data |
container_volume |
10 |
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1 |
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53 |
op_container_end_page |
60 |
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1766405375142133760 |