Monitoring Glacier Calving using Underwater Sound

Abstract

Abstract. Climate shifts are particularly conspicuous in the Arctic. Satellite and terrestrial observations show significant increases in the melting and breakup of Arctic tidewater glaciers and their influence on sea level rise. Increasing melt rates are creating an urgency to better understand the link between atmospheric and oceanic conditions and glacier frontal ablation through iceberg calving and melting. Elucidating this link requires a combination of short and long-time scale measurements of terminus activity. Recent work has demonstrated the potential of using underwater sound to quantify the time and scale of calving events to yield integrated estimates of ice mass loss (Glowacki and Deane, 2020). Here, we present estimates of subaerial calving flux using underwater sound recorded at Hansbreen, Svalbard in September 2013 combined with an algorithm for the automatic detection of calving events. The method is compared with ice calving volumes estimated from geodetic measurements of the movement of the glacier terminus and an analysis of satellite images. The total volume of above-water calving during the 26 days of acoustical observation is estimated to be 1.7 ± 0.7 × 107 m3, whereas the subaerial calving flux estimated by traditional methods is 7 ± 2 × 106 m3. The results suggest that passive cryoacoustics is a viable technique for long-term monitoring of mass loss from marine-terminating glaciers.