Most small glaciers in the world have significantly decreased their volume during the last century, which has caused water shortage problems. Glacier No. 1, at the headwaters of the Urumqi River, Tianshan, China, has been monitored since 1959 and similarly has experienced significant mass and volume losses over the last few decades. Thus, we examined the trend and potential abrupt changes of th...

We present a set of new volume scaling relationships specific to Svalbard glaciers, derived from a sample of 60 volume–area pairs. Glacier volumes are computed from ground-penetrating radar (GPR)-retrieved ice thickness measurements, which have been compiled from different sources for this study. The most precise scaling models, in terms of lowest cross-validation errors, are obtained using a m...

Volume–area scaling is the most popular method for estimating the ice volume of large glacier samples. Here, a series of resampling experiments based on different sets of synthetic data is presented in order to derive an upperbound estimate (i.e. a level achieved only within ideal conditions) for its accuracy. For real-world applications, a lower accuracy has to be expected. We also quantify th...

Inherited and syn-compressional salt-controlled structures in orogens are difficult to distinguish from compressional features because classical salt (halokinetic growth strata, welds) can be misinterpreted as shortening-related (syn-kinematic tectonic unconformities). In the Sivas basin Turkey, syn-kinematic diapirism entirely shaped architecture of foreland allowed development primary seconda...

To clarify altitudinal changes in the bacterial community on Gulkana Glacier in Alaska, we analyzed bacterial 16S rRNA gene by low-cycle PCR amplification, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), and culturing in a snowmelt medium at 4°C. Low-cycle PCR-based cloning revealed the presence of 100 bacterial OTUs; however, 41 OTUs were identified only in a single clone, suggesting that thei...

Samples of snow and firn from accumulation zones on Clark Glacier, Commonwealth Glacier, Blue Glacier and Victoria Upper Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (�77–788S and 161– 1648E), Antarctica, are evaluated chemically and isotopically to determine the relative importance of local (site-specific) factors versus regional-scale influences in defining glaciochemistry. Spatial variation in snow an...

Glacier surface mass balance evaluated over the actual glacier geometry depends not only on climatic variations, but also on the dynamic adjustment of glacier geometry. Therefore, it has been proposed that reference-surface balances calculated over a constant glacier hypsometry are better suited for climatic interpretation. Here we present a comparison of 82 year modelled time series (1926– 200...

We examine the validity of two methods for estimating glacier equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) from topographic maps. The ELA determined by contour inflection (the kinematic ELA) and the mean elevation of the glacier correlate extremely well with the ELA determined from mass-balance data (observed ELA). However, the range in glacier elevations above sea level is much larger than the variation ...

[1] A 94-year time series of annual glacier melt at four high elevation sites in the European Alps is used to investigate the effect of global dimming and brightening of solar radiation on glacier mass balance. Snow and ice melt was stronger in the 1940s than in recent years, in spite of significantly higher air temperatures in the present decade. An inner Alpine radiation record shows that in ...

A glacier submodel was successfully integrated into the distributed hydrological model WaSiM-ETH to simulate the discharge of a heavily glaciated drainage basin. The glacier submodel comprises a distributed temperature index model including solar radiation to simulate the melt rate of glaciated areas. Meltwater and rainfall are transformed into glacier discharge by using a linear reservoir appr...