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This publication is a product from the 2011 Alaska CSC supported project "Assessing the Sensitivity of Alaska’s Coastal Rainforest Ecosystems to Changes in Glacier Runoff". Abstract from paper: Iceberg calving is known to release substantial seismic energy, but little is known about the specific mechanisms that produce calving icequakes. At Yahtse Glacier, a tidewater glacier on the Gulf of Alaska, we draw upon a local network of seismometers and focus on 80 hours of concurrent, direct observation of the terminus to show that calving is the dominant source of seismicity. To elucidate seismogenic mechanisms, we synchronized video and seismograms to reveal that the majority of seismic energy is produced during...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Forests,
Glaciers and Permafrost,
Gulf of Alaska,
Iceberg calving, All tags...
Landscapes,
Sea-Level Rise and Coasts,
Water, Coasts and Ice,
Yahtse Glacier,
seismic energy, Fewer tags
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During the summer in the northeast Pacific Ocean, the Alaska Coastal Current sweeps water with temperatures in excess of 12 °C past the mouths of glacierized fjords and bays. The extent to which these warm waters affect the mass balance of Alaskan tidewater glaciers is uncertain. Here we report hydrographic measurements made within Icy Bay, Alaska, and calculate rates of submarine melt at Yahtse Glacier, a tidewater glacier terminating in Icy Bay. We find strongly stratified water properties consistent with estuarine circulation and evidence that warm Gulf of Alaska water reaches the head of 40 km - long Icy Bay, largely unaltered. A 10 - 20 m layer of cold, fresh, glacially-modified water overlies warm, saline...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Alaska Coastal Current,
Forests,
Glaciers and Permafrost,
Gulf of Alaska, All tags...
Landscapes,
Sea-Level Rise and Coasts,
Water, Coasts and Ice,
Yahtse Glacier,
glacierized fjords and bays,
mass balance,
tidewater glacier, Fewer tags
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Abstract (from http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2290.html): Over the next century, one of the largest contributions to sea level rise will come from ice sheets and glaciers calving ice into the ocean. Factors controlling the rapid and nonlinear variations in calving fluxes are poorly understood, and therefore difficult to include in prognostic climate-forced land-ice models. Here we analyse globally distributed calving data sets from Svalbard, Alaska (USA), Greenland and Antarctica in combination with simulations from a first-principles, particle-based numerical calving model to investigate the size and inter-event time of calving events. We find that calving events triggered by the brittle...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Forests,
Glacier Calving,
Glacier Melt,
Glaciers, All tags...
Glaciers and Permafrost,
Landscapes,
Sea-Level Rise and Coasts,
Water, Coasts and Ice, Fewer tags
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