Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas
Efficient collection of snow depth and density data is important in field surveys used to estimate the winter surface mass balance of glaciers. Simultaneously extensive, high resolution, and accurate snow-depth measurements can be difficult to obtain, so optimisation of measurement configuration and...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:13ebeeb75682465bb6de73cd3d1d66ec 2023-05-15T16:22:28+02:00 Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas Alexandra Pulwicki Gwenn E. Flowers Derek Bingham 2019-08-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2019.00199 https://doaj.org/article/13ebeeb75682465bb6de73cd3d1d66ec EN eng Frontiers Media S.A. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/feart.2019.00199/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-6463 2296-6463 doi:10.3389/feart.2019.00199 https://doaj.org/article/13ebeeb75682465bb6de73cd3d1d66ec Frontiers in Earth Science, Vol 7 (2019) glacier mass balance winter balance experimental design snow survey mountain glaciers St. Elias Mountains Science Q article 2019 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2019.00199 2022-12-31T00:07:35Z Efficient collection of snow depth and density data is important in field surveys used to estimate the winter surface mass balance of glaciers. Simultaneously extensive, high resolution, and accurate snow-depth measurements can be difficult to obtain, so optimisation of measurement configuration and spacing is valuable in any survey design. Using in-situ data from the ablation areas of three glaciers in the St. Elias Mountains of Yukon, Canada, we consider six possible survey designs for snow-depth sampling and N = 6–200+ sampling locations per glacier. For each design and number of sampling locations, we use a linear regression on topographic parameters to estimate winter balance at unsampled locations and compare these estimates with known values. Average errors decrease sharply with increasing sample size up to N ≈ 10–15, but reliable error reduction for any given sampling scheme requires significantly higher N. Lower errors are often, but not always, associated with sampling schemes that employ quasi-regular spacing. With both real- and synthetic data, the common centreline survey produces the poorest results overall. The optimal design often requires sampling near the glacier margin, even at low N. The unconventional “hourglass” design performed best of all designs tested when evaluated against known values of winter balance. Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier* Yukon Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Yukon Canada Frontiers in Earth Science 7 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
glacier mass balance winter balance experimental design snow survey mountain glaciers St. Elias Mountains Science Q |
spellingShingle |
glacier mass balance winter balance experimental design snow survey mountain glaciers St. Elias Mountains Science Q Alexandra Pulwicki Gwenn E. Flowers Derek Bingham Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas |
topic_facet |
glacier mass balance winter balance experimental design snow survey mountain glaciers St. Elias Mountains Science Q |
description |
Efficient collection of snow depth and density data is important in field surveys used to estimate the winter surface mass balance of glaciers. Simultaneously extensive, high resolution, and accurate snow-depth measurements can be difficult to obtain, so optimisation of measurement configuration and spacing is valuable in any survey design. Using in-situ data from the ablation areas of three glaciers in the St. Elias Mountains of Yukon, Canada, we consider six possible survey designs for snow-depth sampling and N = 6–200+ sampling locations per glacier. For each design and number of sampling locations, we use a linear regression on topographic parameters to estimate winter balance at unsampled locations and compare these estimates with known values. Average errors decrease sharply with increasing sample size up to N ≈ 10–15, but reliable error reduction for any given sampling scheme requires significantly higher N. Lower errors are often, but not always, associated with sampling schemes that employ quasi-regular spacing. With both real- and synthetic data, the common centreline survey produces the poorest results overall. The optimal design often requires sampling near the glacier margin, even at low N. The unconventional “hourglass” design performed best of all designs tested when evaluated against known values of winter balance. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Alexandra Pulwicki Gwenn E. Flowers Derek Bingham |
author_facet |
Alexandra Pulwicki Gwenn E. Flowers Derek Bingham |
author_sort |
Alexandra Pulwicki |
title |
Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas |
title_short |
Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas |
title_full |
Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas |
title_fullStr |
Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas |
title_full_unstemmed |
Pursuit of Optimal Design for Winter-Balance Surveys of Valley-Glacier Ablation Areas |
title_sort |
pursuit of optimal design for winter-balance surveys of valley-glacier ablation areas |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2019.00199 https://doaj.org/article/13ebeeb75682465bb6de73cd3d1d66ec |
geographic |
Yukon Canada |
geographic_facet |
Yukon Canada |
genre |
glacier* Yukon |
genre_facet |
glacier* Yukon |
op_source |
Frontiers in Earth Science, Vol 7 (2019) |
op_relation |
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/feart.2019.00199/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-6463 2296-6463 doi:10.3389/feart.2019.00199 https://doaj.org/article/13ebeeb75682465bb6de73cd3d1d66ec |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2019.00199 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Earth Science |
container_volume |
7 |
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1766010443709546496 |