Area, elevation and mass changes of the two southernmost ice caps of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between 1952 and 2014

Abstract

Abstract. In the far south of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA), on the Meta Incognita Peninsula (Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada), the small Grinnell and Terra Nivea ice caps have received little attention compared to the much larger ice masses further north. Their evolution can, however, give valuable information about the impact of the recent Arctic warming at lower latitudes (i.e. 62.5° N). In this paper, we measure historical and recent rates of area, elevation and mass changes of both ice caps using in-situ, airborne and spaceborne datasets. Results show that the Terra Nivea Ice Cap (TNIC) areal extent has decreased by 34% since the late 50s, while the Grinnell Ice Cap (GIC) extent was reduced by 20% since 1952. For both ice caps, rates of area reduction accelerated at the beginning of the 21st century. The glacier-wide mass balance for the GIC was −0.37 ± 0.21 m a−1 water equivalent (w.e.) for the 1952–2014 period, and −0.47 ± 0.16 m a−1 w.e. on the TNIC for the 1958/59–2014 period. More recently, the TNIC has experienced an accelerated rate of mass loss of −1.68 ± 0.36 m a−1 w.e. between 2007 and 2014. This rate is 5.6 times as negative when compared to the 1958/59–2007 period (−0.30 ± 0.19 m a−1 w.e.) and 2 times as negative when compared to the mass balance of other glaciers in the southern parts of Baffin Island over the 2003–2009 period. A similar acceleration in mass loss is suspected for the GIC, given the calculated elevation changes and the proximity.

Atmospheric drying as the main driver of dramatic glacier wastage in the southern Indian Ocean

“…1d ). Except for maritime icefields in Alaska 11 and the southernmost ice caps of the Canadian arctic 40 , similar negative mass balances have only occurred at similar latitudes, for instance in the Darwin Cordillera 2 and South Patagonian Icefields 1 4 , ( Fig. 1d ).…”

Potential of RADARSAT-2 stereo radargrammetry for the generation of glacier DEMs

“…The steps followed to convert the elevation changes to a mass balance are described elsewhere (Papasodoro and others, 2015) and thus not repeated here. For the volume to mass conversion, a density of 900 kg m −3 was used, to facilitate direct comparison with results from Gardner and others (2012).…”

“…At the forefront, optical satellite missions (i.e. ASTER, SPOT-5, ICESat and more recently Pléiades and WorldView) have been extensively used for glaciological purposes (Kääb, 2008; Berthier and others, 2010; Gardner and others, 2012; Bolch and others, 2013; Trüssel and others, 2013; Quincey and others, 2014; Papasodoro and others, 2015). However, optical technologies are dependent on weather and lighting conditions, which complicate their systematic and/or on-demand use (i.e.…”

An optimized method to calculate the geodetic mass balance of mountain glaciers

“…The restituted points can then be interpolated to produce a DEM. This approach requires expert photogrammetric interpretation to overcome the pitfalls of automatic stereo-matching in challenging terrain and has been applied successfully on several glaciers (Thibert and others, 2008; Soruco and others, 2009; Papasodoro and others, 2015; Basantes-Serrano and others, 2016). Although time consuming, the dense manual restitution allows a comprehensive pattern of glacier-wide elevation changes to be captured by providing nearly complete coverage of the glacier surface (Berthier and others, 2010).…”