Glacier mass balance measurements on Fourcade and Polar Club glacier, King George Island

• Main Authors: Falk, Ulrike, López, Damián, Sala, Hernán
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2015
• Subjects: Automatic weather station; AWS; Calculated; DATE/TIME; IMCOAST/IMCONet; Impact of climate induced glacier melt on marine coastal systems; Antarctica; King George Island; Antarctic Peninsula; Length; difference; Melt rate in water equivalent per day; Warszawa_Icefield_AWS; Antarctic; Argentino; Austral; Fourcade; Fourcade Glacier; Pacific; Polar Club Glacier; Ross Archipelago; South Shetland Islands; Vega Island; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Antarc*; Instituto Antártico Argentino
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.854454; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.854454

The east coast of the AP is highly influenced by cold and dry air masses stemming from the adjacent Weddell Sea. By the contrary, the west coast jointly with the South Shetland Islands are directly exposed to the humid and relatively warm air masses from the South Pacific Ocean carried by the strong and persistent westerly winds. Systematic glaciological field studies are very scarce on both sides of the AP, among them can be mentioned a mass-balance program performed continuously since summer 1998/99 by the Instituto Antártico Argentino (IAA) on Vega Island, James Ross Archipelago, on the northeastern flank of the AP. Another continuous plurianual glaciological research has been initiated in 2010 jointly by the University of Bonn and the IAA at the Fourcade Glacier on King George Island (KGI) within the framework of the ESF project IMCOAST (FK 03F0617B). Two transects of mass balance stakes were installed from the top of the Warszawa Ice Dome down to the border of the glaciers Fourcade and Polar Club, to serve for calibration and validation of modeling efforts. The stakes were measured at the beginning and end of each summer field campaign in November 2010, February - March 2011, January - March 2012, and especially during the austral winter 2012 up to March 2013 every 10 to 14 days depending on weather conditions. During the austral winter 2013 and until June 2014 the measurements were conducted every 20 to 30 days, weather permitting. Snow density was measured as well in every field trip from June 2012 until June 2104, establishing a rather homogeneous value along the different parts of the glacier. Snow density in late summer, rho_s is usually higher than the one in late winter, rho_w. Seasonal average values were calculated for the area covered by the mass balance stakes, being rho_s= 471 Kg/m**3 and rho_w = 363 Kg/m**3.