Recent climate warming impact on the firn layers at Lomonosovfonna and Penny Ice Cap

• Main Author: Winander Schönning, Christoffer
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper 2014
• Subjects: Physical Geography; Naturgeografi; Earth and Related Environmental Sciences; Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap; Arctic; Canadian Arctic Archipelago; Lomonosovfonna; Penny Ice Cap; Svalbard; Arctic Archipelago; Ice cap; ice core
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-226239

Current climate warming has a disproportionally large impact on Arctic glaciers and ice caps. In this thesis, I examined stratigraphic changes observed in the top ~15 m of two Arctic ice caps: one located at Svalbard (Lomonosovfonna) and the eastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago (Penny). The objective was to find out if and how the increasing regional temperatures have impacted the stratigraphy and densification rates of these ice caps, and particularly since the 1990s when Arctic warming accelerated. This was accomplished by analyzing and comparing recent (2000s) and earlier (1990s) ice-core density and stratigraphic measurements from these two ice caps, and also regional temperature data from Svalbard and the eastern Canadian Arctic over the period 1995-2013. Data over the amount and thickness of ice layers in the ice cores are also used and compared with the density development. A decrease in elevation for the formation of infiltration ice layers at Lomonsovfonna is concluded as well as a strong increase in temperature where the winter temperatures increase the most. In the ice cores it ́s also seen that each core has certain spatial variability when it comes to the distribution of infiltration ice.