Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland
Virkisjökull, an outlet glacier of the Oræfajökull icecap in SE Iceland, currently has 60% glacier cover, though this is reducing due to glacier retreat. Intensive monitoring over the last 4 years includes measurement of measuring ice ablation, proglacial discharge, dye-tracing of flow pathways, and...
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Online Access: | http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/portal/en/research/glacier-retreat-and-projected-river-regime-changes-in-the-hydrologically-highlycoupled-virkisjoekull-catchment-iceland(87b13923-94de-42f1-be44-456e8737ea4b).html http://hdl.handle.net/10588/87b13923-94de-42f1-be44-456e8737ea4b http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/ws/files/10014177/EGU2016_4211.pdf http://www.egu2016.eu/ http://www.geophysical-research-abstracts.net/egu2016.html http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA.18.4211F |
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ftunivdundeepure:oai:discovery.dundee.ac.uk:publications/87b13923-94de-42f1-be44-456e8737ea4b 2023-05-15T16:21:36+02:00 Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland Flett, Verity Kirkbride, Martin Black, Andrew Everest, Jez MacDonald, Alan 2016-04 application/pdf http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/portal/en/research/glacier-retreat-and-projected-river-regime-changes-in-the-hydrologically-highlycoupled-virkisjoekull-catchment-iceland(87b13923-94de-42f1-be44-456e8737ea4b).html http://hdl.handle.net/10588/87b13923-94de-42f1-be44-456e8737ea4b http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/ws/files/10014177/EGU2016_4211.pdf http://www.egu2016.eu/ http://www.geophysical-research-abstracts.net/egu2016.html http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA.18.4211F eng eng info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Flett , V , Kirkbride , M , Black , A , Everest , J & MacDonald , A 2016 , ' Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland ' EGU General Assembly 2016 , Vienna , Austria , 17/04/16 - 22/04/16 , . conferenceObject 2016 ftunivdundeepure 2017-09-28T19:39:32Z Virkisjökull, an outlet glacier of the Oræfajökull icecap in SE Iceland, currently has 60% glacier cover, though this is reducing due to glacier retreat. Intensive monitoring over the last 4 years includes measurement of measuring ice ablation, proglacial discharge, dye-tracing of flow pathways, and deployment of three automatic weather stations at altitudes up to 880 m. These data calibrate a distributed hydrological model (WaSIM) to project potential river regime during stages of glacier retreat. Results show: (1) glacier hypsometry sensitises the catchment to a disproportionately rapid increase in runoff as the snowline rises onto a gentle ice cap resulting in in a potential annual increase in river discharge of up to 37% (2) a dominantly channelized glacial drainage system in all seasons with a rapid runoff response to melt: englacial flow of 0.58 m s-1 is comparable to the proglacial river velocity; and (3) longer-term, reduced glacier cover and snow storage will lead to a discharge regime dominated by short-term precipitation events in all seasons, and a reduced influence of the seasonal meltwater discharge peak. The study demonstrates the importance of glacier hypsometry above the present ELA as an influence on catchment hydrological response to potential climate warming. Conference Object glacier Ice cap Iceland Discovery - University of Dundee Online Publications Ela ENVELOPE(9.642,9.642,63.170,63.170) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Discovery - University of Dundee Online Publications |
op_collection_id |
ftunivdundeepure |
language |
English |
description |
Virkisjökull, an outlet glacier of the Oræfajökull icecap in SE Iceland, currently has 60% glacier cover, though this is reducing due to glacier retreat. Intensive monitoring over the last 4 years includes measurement of measuring ice ablation, proglacial discharge, dye-tracing of flow pathways, and deployment of three automatic weather stations at altitudes up to 880 m. These data calibrate a distributed hydrological model (WaSIM) to project potential river regime during stages of glacier retreat. Results show: (1) glacier hypsometry sensitises the catchment to a disproportionately rapid increase in runoff as the snowline rises onto a gentle ice cap resulting in in a potential annual increase in river discharge of up to 37% (2) a dominantly channelized glacial drainage system in all seasons with a rapid runoff response to melt: englacial flow of 0.58 m s-1 is comparable to the proglacial river velocity; and (3) longer-term, reduced glacier cover and snow storage will lead to a discharge regime dominated by short-term precipitation events in all seasons, and a reduced influence of the seasonal meltwater discharge peak. The study demonstrates the importance of glacier hypsometry above the present ELA as an influence on catchment hydrological response to potential climate warming. |
format |
Conference Object |
author |
Flett, Verity Kirkbride, Martin Black, Andrew Everest, Jez MacDonald, Alan |
spellingShingle |
Flett, Verity Kirkbride, Martin Black, Andrew Everest, Jez MacDonald, Alan Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland |
author_facet |
Flett, Verity Kirkbride, Martin Black, Andrew Everest, Jez MacDonald, Alan |
author_sort |
Flett, Verity |
title |
Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland |
title_short |
Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland |
title_full |
Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland |
title_fullStr |
Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland |
title_full_unstemmed |
Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland |
title_sort |
glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled virkisjökull catchment, iceland |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/portal/en/research/glacier-retreat-and-projected-river-regime-changes-in-the-hydrologically-highlycoupled-virkisjoekull-catchment-iceland(87b13923-94de-42f1-be44-456e8737ea4b).html http://hdl.handle.net/10588/87b13923-94de-42f1-be44-456e8737ea4b http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/ws/files/10014177/EGU2016_4211.pdf http://www.egu2016.eu/ http://www.geophysical-research-abstracts.net/egu2016.html http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA.18.4211F |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(9.642,9.642,63.170,63.170) |
geographic |
Ela |
geographic_facet |
Ela |
genre |
glacier Ice cap Iceland |
genre_facet |
glacier Ice cap Iceland |
op_source |
Flett , V , Kirkbride , M , Black , A , Everest , J & MacDonald , A 2016 , ' Glacier retreat and projected river regime changes in the hydrologically highly-coupled Virkisjökull catchment, Iceland ' EGU General Assembly 2016 , Vienna , Austria , 17/04/16 - 22/04/16 , . |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
_version_ |
1766009608968601600 |