Size specific steady-state accumulation-area ratio: an improvement for equilibrium-line estimation of small palaeoglaciers

Kern, Zoltán; László, Péter

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.06.033

Cited by 63 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Bakke and Nesje (2011) Cirque and valley 0.6 7 0.05 Ignéczi and Nagy (2013) Outlet 0.58 Gross et al (1977) Cirque, valley and icefields (Alps) 0.67 Braithwaite and Müller (1980) (Arctic, Alpine and Asian) 0.67 (North America and Scandinavia) 0.5 (Extremely high relief areas such as Andes or Himalayas) o 0.5 Clark et al (1994) Debris covered glaciers 0.2-0.1 Kern and László (2010) 0.1-1 km 2 extension 0.447 0.07 1-4 km 2 extension 0.54 7 0.07 Larger than 4 km 2 0.64 70.04 All glaciers (World Glacier Inventory) 0.559 7 0.09 Leonard (1984) and Hughes et al (2010) Ice caps Up to 0.8…”

Section: Paper Type Of Glacier (Location) Ratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

A GIS tool for automatic calculation of glacier equilibrium-line altitudes

Pellitero

Rea

Spagnolo

et al. 2015

Computers & Geosciences

173

145

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A toolbox for the automated calculation of glacier equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) using the Accumulation Area Ratio, Area-Altitude Balance Ratio, Area-Altitude and Kurowski methods is presented. These are the most commonly-used methods of ELA calculation in palaeo-glacier reconstructions. The toolbox has been coded in Python and runs in ArcGIS requiring only the reconstructed surface of the palaeo-glacier (a DEM) as input. Through fast and automatic calculation this toolbox simplifies the process of ELA determination and can successfully work both for a single glacier and for large datasets of multiple glaciers

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Section: Paper Type Of Glacier (Location) Ratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

A GIS tool for automatic calculation of glacier equilibrium-line altitudes

Pellitero

Rea

Spagnolo

et al. 2015

Computers & Geosciences

173

145

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…However, since the gLGM ablation season in each of our scenarios is relatively short (ranging between 71 and 113 days; see Tables 2 and 3), and because the DDM model fails to account for the contribution of accumulating snow and ice from non-direct sources (i.e., windblown and/or avalanched snow and ice from the surrounding landscape), which can be significant in some cases (see Kern and László, 2010), the accumulation estimates derived here are regarded as rough estimates of annual precipitation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking glacier extent and summer temperature in NE Russia - Implications for precipitation during the global Last Glacial Maximum

Meyer

Barr

2017

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact openaccess@qub.ac.uk. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T AbstractIt is generally assumed that during the global Last Glacial Maximum (gLGM, i.e. 18-24 ka BP) dry climatic conditions in NE Russia inhibited the growth of large ice caps and restricted glaciers to mountain ranges. However, recent evidence has been found to suggest that glacial summers in NE Russia were as warm as at present while glaciers were more extensive than today. As a result, we hypothesize that precipitation must have been relatively high in order to compensate for the high summer temperatures and the resulting glacial ablation. We estimate precipitation abundance by mass balance calculations for the paleo-glaciers on Kamchatka and in the Kankaren Range using a degree-day-modelling (DDM) approach, and find that precipitation during the gLGM was likely comparable to, or even exceeded, the modern average. We suggest that stronger than present southerly winds over the Northwest Pacific may have accounted for the abundant precipitation. The DDM-results imply that summer temperature, rather than aridity, limited glacier extent in the southern Pacific Sector of NE Russia during the gLGM.Keywords: Siberia, Last Glacial Maximum, glaciation, precipitation, summer temperature ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTA C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T 2 1) IntroductionAn understanding of the extent of glaciers in East Asia during the global Last Glacial Maximum (gLGM, i.e. 18-24 ka BP, Mix et al. (2001)), and an appreciation of the underlying controlling mechanisms are important for the paleoclimate modelling community, as the presence of large ice-caps during this period would strongly impact climatic conditions in the North Pacific (N Pacific) region (Felzer et al., 2001, Bigg et al., 2008. Glacier extent in Northeast Russia (NE Russia) during the gLGM has been controversially discussed in the literature. For a long time the idea that a...

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“…A larger altitude range might allow enough contrast in balance gradients between accumulation and ablation zones to significantly lower the balanced-budget ELA 0 while a more restricted altitude range might not allow such a large contrast in balance gradients, and ELA 0 will therefore be in better agreement with H mean for mountain glaciers. Kern and László (2010) relate their "steady-state accumulation-area ratio" to glacier size but, from present results, I suggest their relation between AAR 0 and glacier size reflects the dependence on primary classification of the glacier, as I show here for (ELA 0 -H mean ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 47%

“…Some people use the term steadystate to qualify this ELA but this implies zero change in a multitude of factors rather than just the mass balance; see comments by M. F. Meier in the discussion following the papers by Braithwaite and Müller (1980) and Radok (1980), and see also Cogley et al (2011). I have a similar objection to the term steady-state AAR used by some authors (Kern and László, 2010;Ignéczi and Nagy, 2013) and would prefer the term equilibrium AAR of Dyurgerov et al (2009) if not balanced-budget AAR. Using modern terminology (Anonymous, 1969;Cogley et al, 2011), the mean specific balanceb of the whole glacier is the area-weighted sum of specific balances:…”

Section: Kurowski's Workmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Recent ELA-related work includes Benn and Lehmkuhl (2000), Kaser and Osmaston (2002), Cogley and McIntyre (2003), Leonard and Fountain (2003), Carrivick and Brewer (2004), Benn et al (2005), Osmaston (2005), Dyurgerov et al (2009), Braithwaite and Raper (2009), Rea (2009, Kern and László (2010), Bakke andNesje (2011), Rabatel et al (2013), Ignéczi and Nagy (2013) and Heymann (2014), to cite only a few. The possibilities of monitoring year-to-year variations in the endof-summer snow line (EOSS) from aircraft (Chinn, 1995) or from satellite images (Rabatel et al, 2005(Rabatel et al, , 2012Mathieu et al, 2014) raise similar needs to estimate proxy ELAs for present-day glaciers for which there are no observed massbalance data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Doktor Kurowski's Schneegrenze to our modern glacier equilibrium line altitude (ELA)

Braithwaite

2015

The Cryosphere

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Abstract. Translated into modern terminology, Kurowski suggested in 1891 that the equilibrium line altitude (ELA) of a glacier is equal to the mean altitude of the glacier when the whole glacier is in balance between accumulation and ablation. Kurowski's method has been widely misunderstood, partly due to inappropriate use of statistical terminology by later workers, and has only been tested by Braithwaite and Müller in a 1980 paper (for 32 glaciers). I now compare Kurowski's mean altitude with balanced-budget ELA calculated for 103 present-day glaciers with measured surface mass-balance data. Kurowski's mean altitude is significantly higher (at 95 % level) than balanced-budget ELA for 19 outlet and 42 valley glaciers, but not significantly higher for 34 mountain glaciers. The error in Kurowski mean altitude as a predictor of balanced-budget ELA might be due to generally lower balance gradients in accumulation areas compared with ablation areas for many glaciers, as suggested by several workers, but some glaciers have higher gradients, presumably due to precipitation increase with altitude. The relatively close agreement between balanced-budget ELA and mean altitude for mountain glaciers (mean error -8 m with standard deviation 59 m) may reflect smaller altitude ranges for these glaciers such that there is less room for effects of different balance gradients to manifest themselves.

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Size specific steady-state accumulation-area ratio: an improvement for equilibrium-line estimation of small palaeoglaciers

Cited by 63 publications

References 34 publications

A GIS tool for automatic calculation of glacier equilibrium-line altitudes

A GIS tool for automatic calculation of glacier equilibrium-line altitudes

Linking glacier extent and summer temperature in NE Russia - Implications for precipitation during the global Last Glacial Maximum

From Doktor Kurowski's Schneegrenze to our modern glacier equilibrium line altitude (ELA)

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