Glacier mass balances of Stubacher Sonnblickkees, Hohe Tauern Range, Eastern Alps, Austria, 1958/1959 et seq ...

• Main Authors: Slupetzky, Heinz, Ehgartner, Gerhard, Zagel, Bernhard
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2014
• Subjects: Glaciers Austria; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.829950; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.829950

Stubacher Sonnblickkees (SSK) is located in the Hohe Tauern Range (Eastern Alps) in the south of Salzburg Province (Austria) in the region of Oberpinzgau in the upper Stubach Valley. The glacier is situated at the main Alpine crest and faces east, starting at elevations close to 3050 m and in the 1980s terminated at 2500 m a.s.l. It had an area of 1.7 km² at that time, compared with 1 km² in 2013. The glacier type can be classified as a slope glacier, i.e. the relief is covered by a relatively thin ice sheet and there is no regular glacier tongue. The rough subglacial topography makes for a complex shape in the surface topography, with various concave and convex patterns.The main reason for selecting this glacier for mass balance observations (as early as 1963) was to verify on a complex glacier how the mass balance methods and the conclusions - derived during the more or less pioneer phase of glaciological investigations in the 1950s and 1960s - could be applied to the SSK glacier. The decision was ... : The data series is continued annually. ...