Time‐lapse photogrammetry reveals hydrological controls of fine‐scale High‐Arctic glacier surface roughness evolution

Abstract

In a warming Arctic, as glacier snowlines rise, short-to medium-term increases in seasonal bare-ice extent are forecast for the next few decades. These changes will enhance the importance of turbulent energy fluxes for surface ablation and glacier mass balance. Turbulent energy exchanges at the ice surface are conditioned by its topography, or roughness, which has been hypothesized to be controlled by supraglacial hydrology at the glacier scale. However, current understanding of the dynamics in surface topography, and the role of drainage development, remains incomplete,

Exploring the Optimal 4D-SfM Photogrammetric Models at Plot Scale

“…Therefore, the accuracy of the 49-ultra-high and 49-high models in this study is also better than the relative accuracy of multi-camera positions based on 4D-SfM studies [1,25,26,28,36,37]. The relative precision of 4D-SfM photogrammetry from previous studies ranges from 1:13.5 to 1: 1500 [1,25,26,28,36,37]. Compared with previous studies, the relative accuracy of the 49-ultra-high model is 1:1592, which overperformed most of the multi-camerabased 4D-SfM photogrammetry.…”

“…Moreover, the use of multiple cameras inevitably leads to differences in the intrinsic parameters of each camera, which makes image matching and subsequent processing more challenging. Therefore, the accuracy of the 49-ultra-high and 49-high models in this study is also better than the relative accuracy of multi-camera positions based on 4D-SfM studies [1,25,26,28,36,37]. Although the time-lapse 4D-SfM set-up applied in this study has a large advantage in terms of accuracy, it also has a number of problems.…”

The distinctive weathering crust habitat of a High Arctic glacier comprises discrete microbial micro‐habitats

“…Foxfonna (78.14° N 16.11° E) is a 6 km 2 sized ice cap with a north‐facing outlet glacier (hereafter Lower Foxfonna ) in Central Spitsbergen, Svalbard. Previous studies on Foxfonna have addressed the molecular ecology (Gokul et al, 2016; Gokul et al, 2023), biogeochemistry (Dayal et al, 2023; Koziol et al, 2019) and supraglacial processes (Irvine‐Fynn et al, 2022). Predominantly cold glacier ice extends from ~380 to 810 m above sea level with a maximum thickness of ~60 m in the upper elevations, but extending to ~120 m in Lower Foxfonna (Christiansen et al, 2005; Rutter et al, 2011).…”

“…Consequently, in common with other Svalbard glaciers (Noël et al, 2020) the extent and duration of weathering crust development at Foxfonna's ablation zone has increased in recent years. This study focused on a supraglacial catchment at 450–500 m elevation on the ~1.9 km 2 northwestern tongue of Lower Foxfonna which typically experiences a 50–60 day melt season from mid‐June to mid‐August (Irvine‐Fynn et al, 2022) and was performed between 11 July 2019 (Day of Year [DOY] 192) and 28 August 2019 (DOY 240). Snowfall in early August 2019 covered the bare ice ablation area and terminated ice melt, limiting sampling of melt‐associated habitats to the first 4 weeks of the study (DOY 192‐DOY 210).…”

“…Consequently, in common with other Svalbard glaciers (Noël et al, 2020) the extent and duration of weathering crust development at Foxfonna's ablation zone has increased in recent years. This study focused on a supraglacial catchment at 450-500 m elevation on the $1.9 km 2 northwestern tongue of Lower Foxfonna which typically experiences a 50-60 day melt season from mid-June to mid-August (Irvine-Fynn et al, 2022)…”