The thermal impact of tourism on a Svalbard glacier cave (Short Communication)

Glacier cave visits are an important tourism activity on Svalbard with increasing popularity. This study investigates the thermal effect of touristic visits on the air temperature of a glacier cave on Longyearbreen, a small high-Arctic glacier. Short-term temperature perturbations of up to 1.59°C (4...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alexander, Andreas
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Masaryk Univerzity 2021
Subjects:
glacier caves
tourism
cave temperature
Arctic
Svalbard
Longyearbreen
glacier
Online Access:http://journals.muni.cz/CPR/article/view/15423
Description
Summary:Glacier cave visits are an important tourism activity on Svalbard with increasing popularity. This study investigates the thermal effect of touristic visits on the air temperature of a glacier cave on Longyearbreen, a small high-Arctic glacier. Short-term temperature perturbations of up to 1.59°C (42% local temperature increase) can be linked to human visitors. It is, however, unlikely that the local heat input from touristic visits is high enough to cause a lasting effect on the thermal regime of glacier caves and the surrounding ice.

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