Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements
Glacial hydrology plays an important role in the control of glacier dynamics, of sediment transport, and of fjord and proglacial ecosystems. Surface meltwater drains through glaciers via supraglacial, englacial and subglacial systems. Due to challenging field conditions, the processes driving surfac...
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Copernicus Publications
2020
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ftnonlinearchiv:oai:noa.gwlb.de:cop_mods_00050956 2023-05-15T18:32:33+02:00 Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements Alexander, Andreas Kruusmaa, Maarja Tuhtan, Jeffrey A. Hodson, Andrew J. Schuler, Thomas V. Kääb, Andreas 2020-03 electronic https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1009-2020 https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00050956 https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00050613/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1009/2020/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf eng eng Copernicus Publications The Cryosphere -- ˜Theœ Cryosphere -- http://www.bibliothek.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/?2393169 -- http://www.the-cryosphere.net/ -- 1994-0424 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1009-2020 https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00050956 https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00050613/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1009/2020/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ uneingeschränkt info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC-BY article Verlagsveröffentlichung article Text doc-type:article 2020 ftnonlinearchiv https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1009-2020 2022-02-08T22:36:37Z Glacial hydrology plays an important role in the control of glacier dynamics, of sediment transport, and of fjord and proglacial ecosystems. Surface meltwater drains through glaciers via supraglacial, englacial and subglacial systems. Due to challenging field conditions, the processes driving surface processes in glacial hydrology remain sparsely studied. Recently, sensing drifters have shown promise in river, coastal and oceanographic studies. However, practical experience with drifters in glacial hydrology remains limited. Before drifters can be used as general tools in glacial studies, it is necessary to quantify the variability of their measurements. To address this, we conducted repeated field experiments in a 450 m long supraglacial channel with small cylindrical drifters equipped with pressure, magnetometer, acceleration and rotation rate sensors and compared the results. The experiments (n=55) in the supraglacial channel show that the pressure sensors consistently yielded the most accurate data, where values remained within ±0.11 % of the total pressure time-averaged mean (95 % confidence interval). Magnetometer readings also exhibited low variability across deployments, maintaining readings within ±2.45 % of the time-averaged mean of the magnetometer magnitudes. Linear acceleration measurements were found to have a substantially higher variability of ±34.4 % of the time-averaged mean magnitude, and the calculated speeds remained within ±24.5 % of the time-averaged mean along the flow path. Furthermore, our results indicate that prominent shapes in the sensor records are likely to be linked to variations in channel morphology and the associated flow field. Our results show that multimodal drifters can be a useful tool for field measurements inside supraglacial channels. Future deployments of drifters into englacial and subglacial channels promise new opportunities for determining hydraulic and morphologic conditions from repeated measurements of such inaccessible environments. Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere Niedersächsisches Online-Archiv NOA The Cryosphere 14 3 1009 1023 |
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article Verlagsveröffentlichung |
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article Verlagsveröffentlichung Alexander, Andreas Kruusmaa, Maarja Tuhtan, Jeffrey A. Hodson, Andrew J. Schuler, Thomas V. Kääb, Andreas Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements |
topic_facet |
article Verlagsveröffentlichung |
description |
Glacial hydrology plays an important role in the control of glacier dynamics, of sediment transport, and of fjord and proglacial ecosystems. Surface meltwater drains through glaciers via supraglacial, englacial and subglacial systems. Due to challenging field conditions, the processes driving surface processes in glacial hydrology remain sparsely studied. Recently, sensing drifters have shown promise in river, coastal and oceanographic studies. However, practical experience with drifters in glacial hydrology remains limited. Before drifters can be used as general tools in glacial studies, it is necessary to quantify the variability of their measurements. To address this, we conducted repeated field experiments in a 450 m long supraglacial channel with small cylindrical drifters equipped with pressure, magnetometer, acceleration and rotation rate sensors and compared the results. The experiments (n=55) in the supraglacial channel show that the pressure sensors consistently yielded the most accurate data, where values remained within ±0.11 % of the total pressure time-averaged mean (95 % confidence interval). Magnetometer readings also exhibited low variability across deployments, maintaining readings within ±2.45 % of the time-averaged mean of the magnetometer magnitudes. Linear acceleration measurements were found to have a substantially higher variability of ±34.4 % of the time-averaged mean magnitude, and the calculated speeds remained within ±24.5 % of the time-averaged mean along the flow path. Furthermore, our results indicate that prominent shapes in the sensor records are likely to be linked to variations in channel morphology and the associated flow field. Our results show that multimodal drifters can be a useful tool for field measurements inside supraglacial channels. Future deployments of drifters into englacial and subglacial channels promise new opportunities for determining hydraulic and morphologic conditions from repeated measurements of such inaccessible environments. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Alexander, Andreas Kruusmaa, Maarja Tuhtan, Jeffrey A. Hodson, Andrew J. Schuler, Thomas V. Kääb, Andreas |
author_facet |
Alexander, Andreas Kruusmaa, Maarja Tuhtan, Jeffrey A. Hodson, Andrew J. Schuler, Thomas V. Kääb, Andreas |
author_sort |
Alexander, Andreas |
title |
Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements |
title_short |
Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements |
title_full |
Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements |
title_fullStr |
Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements |
title_full_unstemmed |
Pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements |
title_sort |
pressure and inertia sensing drifters for glacial hydrology flow path measurements |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1009-2020 https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00050956 https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00050613/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1009/2020/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_relation |
The Cryosphere -- ˜Theœ Cryosphere -- http://www.bibliothek.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/?2393169 -- http://www.the-cryosphere.net/ -- 1994-0424 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1009-2020 https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00050956 https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00050613/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1009/2020/tc-14-1009-2020.pdf |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ uneingeschränkt info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1009-2020 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
1009 |
op_container_end_page |
1023 |
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1766216745497919488 |