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Meteorology and summer net radiation of an Arctic alpine glacier: Svenbreen, Svalbard
Author(s) -
Małecki Jakub
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.6062
Subject(s) - glacier , arctic , microclimate , climatology , shortwave radiation , environmental science , glacier mass balance , wind speed , shortwave , physical geography , geology , oceanography , geography , radiation , radiative transfer , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
Arctic glaciers have been, and are predicted to remain, an important sea‐level rise contributor over the 20th and 21st centuries. However, multi‐annual observations of their basic meteorological characteristics, which drive melt processes, are very sparse, contributing to uncertainties in sea‐level rise projections. This paper presents a methodology to process and analyse 6 years (September 2011–September 2017) of glacier meteorology data collected by an automatic weather station on the ablation zone of a small valley glacier in Svalbard (~79°N). The study focuses on the microclimate of the study glacier and its differences with that of large glaciers in the region, namely slightly increased summer air temperature with steep near‐surface lapse rates, frequently superadiabatic, reduced wind speed and incoming shortwave radiation flux. These differences are likely related to the adjacent complex relief and non‐ice‐covered surfaces within the basin of the study glacier and, as such, pose a challenge for accurate simulation of alpine glacier microclimates in regional melt assessments in the Arctic. The processing routine applied in this paper might serve as a reference for future similar studies.