Collins Glacier Retreat Process and Regional Climatic Variations, King George Island, Antarctica

Abstract

This paper investigates the recent climatic variability and changes in snow line and ice front position in Collins Glacier, King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula. This region has recorded one of the largest temperature increases in the past fifty years and has been demonstrated to be highly sensitive to climate changes. To monitor recent changes (1983–2006), we determined the fluctuations of the terminus and snow line of the glacier via remote sensing data and field observation in the summer of 2013. We conclude that the Collins Glacier has responded slowly to regional climate changes (decades or even centuries), as glacial responses to climatic events do not depend solely on one environmental variable. The glacier presented more retreat and elevation of the snow line in the north sector. The retreat data are correlated with the mean monthly temperature and annual number of days of melting‐degree variations.

Bedload transport in two creeks at the ice-free area of the Baranowski Glacier, King George Island, West Antarctica

“…From January 2008 to January 2011, mass loss was -0.64 ± 0.38 m w.e.a -1 , for the entire ice cap (Osmanoğlu et al 2013). Recently, negative mass balance was also confirmed by Rückamp et al (2010) and Simões et al (2015). The short-term observation of mean annual net mass balance of Ecology and Sphinx glaciers system is +17.8 cm w.e.…”

“…Due to the increase in air temperature, the response of the glaciers is clearly visible. Since 1956, observations of glacial front positions have been carried out in this region (Wunderle 1996;Kejna et al 1998;Park et al 1998;Birkenmajer 2002;Braun and Grossman 2002;Rückamp et al 2011;Da Rosa et al 2014;Sobota et al 2015;Simões et al 2015) and a general tendency to recession of the glaciers located on the KGI has been observed. Since 1956, KGI has lost about 7% of its original ice cover (Simões et al 1999).…”

The deglaciation of Barton Peninsula (King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica) based on geomorphological evidence and lacustrine records

“…PCA statistics are, therefore, in good agreement with the qualitative observations described above. Table 3 Figure 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 (Simoes, Rosa, Czapela, Vieira, & Simoes, 2015). This pattern must be framed within the long-term pattern of glacial retreat in the Antarctic Peninsula region detected since the mid-20th century in response to one of the fastest rates of warming recorded on Earth, with temperature increases of ca.…”

The Effect of Glacier Recession on Benthic and Pelagic Communities: Case Study in Herve Cove, Antarctica

“…The Antarctic Peninsula region is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth [1][2][3]. Recent results [4][5][6][7][8][9] have shown the rapid retreat of glaciers located on the South Shetland Islands. In the case of tidewater glaciers, this rapid retreat results in the uncovering of new, ice-free, unhabituated areas of the ocean floor [2,3,10,11].…”