The Austre Lovénbreen is a 4.6 km glacier on the Archipelago of Svalbard (79N) that has been surveyed over the last 47 years in order of monitoring in particular the glacier evolution and associated hydrological phenomena in the context of nowadays global warming. A three-week field survey over April 2010 allowed for the acquisition of a dense mesh of Ground-penetrating Radar (GPR) data with an...

Glacier dynamics are inextricably linked to the basal conditions of glaciers. Seismic reflection methods can image the glacier bed under certain conditions. However, where a seismically thin layer of material is present at the bed, traditional analyses may fail to fully characterize bed properties. We use a targeted full-waveform inversion algorithm to quantify the basal-layer parameters of a m...

[1] In the context of investigating modern glacier recession on Kilimanjaro, which began around 1880, this study addresses the glacier regime of the vertical ice walls that typically form the margins of Kilimanjaro’s summit glaciers. These walls have suffered a continuous lateral retreat during the twentieth century. To evaluate the role of solar radiation in maintaining glacier recession on Ki...

The mechanical properties of glacier beds play a fundamental role in regulating the sensitivity of glaciers to environmental forcing across a wide range of timescales. Glaciers are commonly underlain by deformable till whose mechanical properties and influence on ice flow are not well understood but are critical for reliable projections of future glacier states. Using synoptic-scale observation...

Water that pressurizes the base of glaciers and ice sheets enhances glacier velocities and modulates glacial erosion. Predicting ice flow and erosion therefore requires knowledge of subglacial channel evolution, which remains observationally limited. Here we demonstrate that detailed analysis of seismic ground motion caused by subglacial water flow at Mendenhall Glacier (Alaska) allows for cont...

The Bering Glacier–Bagley Icefield system in Alaska is currently surging (2011). Large-scale elevation changes and small-scale elevation-change characteristics are investigated to understand surge progression, especially mass transport from the pre-surge reservoir area to the receiving area and propagation of the kinematic surge wave as manifested in heavy crevassing characteristic of rapid, br...

Antarctic glacier forefields are extreme environments and pioneer sites for ecological succession. Increasing temperatures due to global warming lead to enhanced deglaciation processes in cold-affected habitats, and new terrain is becoming exposed to soil formation and microbial colonization. However, only little is known about the impact of environmental changes on microbial communities and ho...

A global overview of glacier advances and retreats (grouped by regions and by millennia) for the Holocene is compiled from previous studies. The reconstructions of glacier fluctuations are based on 1) mapping and dating moraines defined by 14C, TCN, OSL, lichenometry and tree rings (discontinuous records/time series), and 2) sediments from proglacial lakes and speleothems (continuous records/ t...

—We found evidence of birds nesting directly on glacier ice of the Quelccaya Ice Cap in the Cordillera Vilcanota, Perú at elevations up to 5,300 m. Observations during June and July over several years consisted of numerous nests not in situ having obviously fallen from the steep and dynamic, retreating glacier margin. A typical nest was a bulky structure of grass and twigs with a dry mass of 16...

Marine-terminating glaciers may experience seasonal and short-term flow variations, which can impact rates of ice flux through the glacier terminus. We explore the relationship between variability in the flow of a large tidewater glacier (Belcher Glacier, Nunavut, Canada), the seasonal cycle of surface meltwater production and the rapid drainage of supraglacial lakes. We demonstrate a novel met...