The geodetic mass balance of Eyjafjallajökull ice cap for 1945–2014: processing guidelines and relation to climate

• Published in: Journal of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Belart, Joaquín M. C., Magnússon, Eyjólfur, Berthier, Etienne, Pálsson, Finnur, Adalgeirsdottir, Gudfinna, Jóhannesson, Tómas
• Other Authors: Jarðvísindastofnun (HÍ), Institute of Earth Sciences (UI), Verkfræði- og náttúruvísindasvið (HÍ), School of Engineering and Natural Sciences (UI), Háskóli Íslands, University of Iceland
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2019
• Subjects: Earth-Surface Processes; Geodetic mass balance; Glacier-climate relationship; Remote sensing; Jöklarannsóknir; Loftslagsbreytingar; Fjarkönnun; Jules; Verne; Eyjafjallajökull; glacier; Ice cap; Iceland; Journal of Glaciology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/1733; https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2019.16

Publisher's version (útgefin grein) Mass-balance measurements of Icelandic glaciers are sparse through the 20th century. However, the large archive of stereo images available allows estimates of glacier-wide mass balance in decadal time steps since 1945. Combined with climate records, they provide further insight into glacier-climate relationship. This study presents a workflow to process aerial photographs (1945-1995), spy satellite imagery (1977-1980) and modern satellite stereo images (since 2000) using photogrammetric techniques and robust statistics in a highly automated, open-source pipeline to retrieve seasonally corrected, decadal glacier-wide geodetic mass balances. In our test area, Eyjafjallajökull (S-Iceland, ~70 km2), we obtain a mass balance of <![CDATA[$, with a maximum and minimum of and , respectively, attributed to climatic forcing, and , mostly caused by the April 2010 eruption. The reference-surface mass balances correlate with summer temperature and winter precipitation, and linear regression accounts for 80% of the mass-balance variability, yielding a static sensitivity of mass balance to summer temperature and winter precipitation of-2.1 ± 0.4 m w.e.a-1K-1 and 0.5 ± 0.3 m w.e.a-1 (10%)-1, respectively. This study serves as a template that can be used to estimate the mass-balance changes and glaciers' response to climate. This study was funded by the University of Iceland (UI) Research Fund. Collaboration and travels between IES and LEGOS were funded by the Jules Verne research fund. We thank David Shean and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which greatly improved the manuscript. We thank Carsten Kristinsson at LMÍ for scanning the aerial photographs, Oleg Alexandrov for his helpful tips and advice on ASP, Luc Girod for his help in the MicMac forum and Deirdre Clark and Ken Moxham for the Englishlanguage editing of the manuscript. Pléiades images were acquired at research price thanks to the CNES ISIS program (http://www.isis-cnes.fr). This study uses the lidar ...