|
Hidden Creek Lake (HCL), an ice-marginal lake impounded by Kennicott Glacier, Wrangell Mountains, Alaska, fills annually to ∼20 to 30 × 106 m3 and then drains subglacially within 2 to 3 days. During the 1999 and 2000 jökulhlaups, we carried out a series of planned observations around the lake and in the Kennicott River, which drains the glacier. Approximately 20% of the lake volume was contained within a subglacial water “wedge” beneath the ice dam. The entire volume of the lake drains through the wedge; hydraulic head loss through this constriction may be responsible for the fairly symmetrical shape of the HCL outflow hydrographs, deduced from lake level records, basin hypsometry, and collapse of the ice dam. The...
|
Scientific measurements at Wolverine Glacier, on the Kenai Peninsula in south-central Alaska, began in April 1966. At three long-term sites in the research basin, the measurements included snow depth, snow density, heights of the glacier surface and stratigraphic summer surfaces on stakes, and identification of the surface materials. Calculations of the mass balance of the surface strata - snow, new firn, superimposed ice, and old firn and ice mass at each site were based on these measurements. Calculations of fixed-date annual mass balances for each hydrologic year (October 1 to September 30), as well as net balances and the dates of minimum net balance measured between time-transgressive summer surfaces on the...
|
|