Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability
Compared to other Arctic ice masses, Svalbard glaciers are low-elevated with flat interior accumulation areas, resulting in a marked peak in their current hypsometry (area-elevation distribution) at ~450 m above sea level. Since summer melt consistently exceeds winter snowfall, these low-lying glaci...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7490702 2023-05-15T15:02:59+02:00 Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability Noël, Brice Jakobs, C. L. van Pelt, W. J. J. Lhermitte, S. Wouters, B. Kohler, J. Hagen, J. O. Luks, B. Reijmer, C. H. van de Berg, W. J. van den Broeke, M. R. 2020-09-14 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7490702/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32929066 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18356-1 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7490702/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32929066 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18356-1 © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Nat Commun Article Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18356-1 2020-10-04T00:34:04Z Compared to other Arctic ice masses, Svalbard glaciers are low-elevated with flat interior accumulation areas, resulting in a marked peak in their current hypsometry (area-elevation distribution) at ~450 m above sea level. Since summer melt consistently exceeds winter snowfall, these low-lying glaciers can only survive by refreezing a considerable fraction of surface melt and rain in the porous firn layer covering their accumulation zones. We use a high-resolution climate model to show that modest atmospheric warming in the mid-1980s forced the firn zone to retreat upward by ~100 m to coincide with the hypsometry peak. This led to a rapid areal reduction of firn cover available for refreezing, and strongly increased runoff from dark, bare ice areas, amplifying mass loss from all elevations. As the firn line fluctuates around the hypsometry peak in the current climate, Svalbard glaciers will continue to lose mass and show high sensitivity to temperature perturbations. Text Arctic Svalbard PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Svalbard Nature Communications 11 1 |
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Article Noël, Brice Jakobs, C. L. van Pelt, W. J. J. Lhermitte, S. Wouters, B. Kohler, J. Hagen, J. O. Luks, B. Reijmer, C. H. van de Berg, W. J. van den Broeke, M. R. Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability |
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Compared to other Arctic ice masses, Svalbard glaciers are low-elevated with flat interior accumulation areas, resulting in a marked peak in their current hypsometry (area-elevation distribution) at ~450 m above sea level. Since summer melt consistently exceeds winter snowfall, these low-lying glaciers can only survive by refreezing a considerable fraction of surface melt and rain in the porous firn layer covering their accumulation zones. We use a high-resolution climate model to show that modest atmospheric warming in the mid-1980s forced the firn zone to retreat upward by ~100 m to coincide with the hypsometry peak. This led to a rapid areal reduction of firn cover available for refreezing, and strongly increased runoff from dark, bare ice areas, amplifying mass loss from all elevations. As the firn line fluctuates around the hypsometry peak in the current climate, Svalbard glaciers will continue to lose mass and show high sensitivity to temperature perturbations. |
format |
Text |
author |
Noël, Brice Jakobs, C. L. van Pelt, W. J. J. Lhermitte, S. Wouters, B. Kohler, J. Hagen, J. O. Luks, B. Reijmer, C. H. van de Berg, W. J. van den Broeke, M. R. |
author_facet |
Noël, Brice Jakobs, C. L. van Pelt, W. J. J. Lhermitte, S. Wouters, B. Kohler, J. Hagen, J. O. Luks, B. Reijmer, C. H. van de Berg, W. J. van den Broeke, M. R. |
author_sort |
Noël, Brice |
title |
Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability |
title_short |
Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability |
title_full |
Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability |
title_fullStr |
Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability |
title_full_unstemmed |
Low elevation of Svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability |
title_sort |
low elevation of svalbard glaciers drives high mass loss variability |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7490702/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32929066 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18356-1 |
geographic |
Arctic Svalbard |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Svalbard |
genre |
Arctic Svalbard |
genre_facet |
Arctic Svalbard |
op_source |
Nat Commun |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7490702/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32929066 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18356-1 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18356-1 |
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Nature Communications |
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11 |
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1 |
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1766334897393238016 |