Mass balance, ice volume, and flow velocity of the Vestre Grønfjordbreen (Svalbard) from 2013/14 to 2019/20

Figures & data

Figure 1. The study site and other glaciers mentioned in the study: Austre Brøggerbreen and Midtre Lovénbreen (1); Waldemarbreen and Irenebreen (2), Svenbreen (3); Werenskioldbreen (4); and the push moraine of Vestre Grønfjordbreen (5).

Table 1. Annual and seasonal glaciological mass balances of Vestre Grønfjordbreen in 2013/14–2019/2020.

Mass-balance year	Ba	Bw	Bs	Dates of Ba observations	Dates of Bw observations (snow survey)
	m w. e.
2013/14	–0.60 ± 0.18	0.67 ± 0.20	–1.27 ± 0.27	10 Sep 2013 – 26 Sep 2014	25 Apr 2014
2014/15	–0.88 ± 0.24	0.75 ± 0.23	–1.63 ± 0.33	26 Sep 2014 – 12 Sep 2015	05 May 2015
2015/16	–1.19 ± 0.21	0.36 ± 0.19	–1.56 ± 0.29	12 Sep 2015 – 12 Sep 2016	16 Apr 2016
2016/17	–1.92 ± 0.23	0.60 ± 0.19	–2.53 ± 0.30	12 Sep 2016 – 04 Sep 2017	09 Apr 2017
2017/18	–1.19 ± 0.22	0.44 ± 0.16	–1.63 ± 0.27	04 Sep 2017 – 18 Sep 2018	10 Apr 2018
2018/19	–0.78 ± 0.20	0.56 ± 0.31	–1.34 ± 0.36	18 Sep 2018 – 16 Sep 2019	02 May 2019
2019/20	–2.01 ± 0.26	0.48 ± 0.12	–2.46 ± 0.28	16 Sep 2019 – 23 Sep 2020	07 May 2020

Figure 2. (a) Observational network on Vestre Grønfjordbreen and (b) the profiles of the ground-based GNSS survey (2019): snow thickness sampling sites (1); snow pits (2); ablation stakes (3); GNSS survey profiles (4); and elevation contour lines for year 2015 (5).

Figure 3. The results of the GPR study of Vestre Grønfjordbreen. (a) Ice thickness in April 2019: outlines of temperate ice (1); outlines of firn zone (2). (b) Bed elevations based on the GPR survey: outlines of temperate ice (1); minor ice fall (2). (c) Profiles of the GPR study: year 2019 (1); year 2010 (2); the deepest observed glacier ice (3). (d) The intersection of processed GPR lines (OpendTect 6.4 software was used for visualization).

Table 2. Cumulative mass losses of Vestre Grønfjordbreen computed by two methods.

Method	Period	Cumulative mass balance	Mass loss
		m w.e.	Mt
Direct	10 Sep 2013 – 23 Sep 2020	–7.67 ± 0.55	143.2 ± 9.8
Direct	25 July 2015 – 16 Sep 2019	–5.66 ± 0.48	94.6 ± 7.9
Geodetic	20 July 2015 – 26 Aug 2019	–5.52 ± 0.40	91.6 ± 13.1

Figure 4. (a) Surface lowering in 2015–19: contour lines of surface lowering (1), 5 m interval; supposed main flow lines (2). (b) Annual flow velocities between 2018 and 2019: contour lines of bed inclination, 5° interval (1); stake velocities and directions (2).

Figure 5. Pit-averaged snow density values for Vestre Grønfjordbreen in 2014–2020.

Figure 6. Area-altitude distribution for Vestre Grønfjordbreen (averaged between 2015 and 2019) and mass-balance profiles measured by glaciological method.

Table 3. Comparison between GPR results for the years 2010 and 2019.

		Ice volume	Mean (area-averaged) ice thickness	Maximum observed ice thickness
Year	Source	km^3	m	m
2010	Martín-Español et al. (2013)	1.918 ± 0.146	107 ± 12	215 ± 5
2010, reprocessed	Lavrentiev et al. (2019)	1.617 ± 0.161	94	214
2019	This study	1.987 ± 0.139	119 ± 9	186 ± 4
Change		n/a^a	n/a^a	–29 ± 6

^aChange is statistically insignificant (α = 0.05).

Figure 7. (a) Cumulative mass loss of Vestre Grønfjordbreen and (b) total glacier mass (b) for the period 2013/14–2019/20.

Figure 8. Scatterplots between mass-balance values of Vestre Grønfjordbreen and meteorological parameters at the Barentsburg weather station: (a) annual mass balances and positive degree-day sums; (b) summer mass balances and positive degree-day sums; (c) winter mass balance and precipitation amounts during October–April; (d) annual mass balances and winter mass balances.

Table 4. Matrix of pair correlation coefficients for annual mass balances of land-terminating Svalbard glaciers: a) for the period of 2013/14–2018/19, b) for the maximum available overlapping monitoring period; total length of observational series (in mass-balance years) is indicated for each glacier in parentheses.

a)	Vestre Grønfjordbreen	Austre Grønfjordbreen	Austre Brøggerbreen	Midtre Lovénbreen	Irenebreen	Waldemarbreen	Svenbreen	Werenskioldbreen
Vestre Grønfjordbreen	-	0.08	0.52	0.52	0.65	0.51	0.29	0.51
Austre Grønfjordbreen	0.08	-	0.76	0.73	0.39	0.50	0.71	0.80
Austre Brøggerbreen	0.52	0.76	-	1.00	0.86	0.91	0.96	0.99
Midtre Lovénbreen	0.52	0.73	1.00	-	0.85	0.91	0.96	0.97
Irenebreen	0.65	0.39	0.86	0.85	-	0.98	0.81	0.84
Waldemarbreen	0.51	0.50	0.91	0.91	0.98	-	0.91	0.88
Svenbreen	0.29	0.71	0.96	0.96	0.81	0.91	-	0.91
Werenskioldbreen	0.51	0.80	0.99	0.97	0.84	0.88	0.91	-
b)	Vestre Grønfjordbreen	Austre Grønfjordbreen	Austre Brøggerbreen	Midtre Lovénbreen	Irenebreen	Waldemarbreen	Svenbreen	Werenskioldbreen
Vestre Grønfjordbreen (6)	-	0.08	0.52	0.52	0.65	0.51	0.29	0.51
Austre Grønfjordbreen (16)	0.08	-	0.63	0.65	0.63	0.71	0.50	0.60
Austre Brøggerbreen (53)	0.52	0.63	-	0.98	0.58	0.61	0.75	0.93
Midtre Lovénbreen (52)	0.52	0.65	0.98	-	0.62	0.63	0.69	0.95
Irenebreen (17)	0.65	0.63	0.58	0.62	-	0.96	0.79	0.87
Waldemarbreen (24)	0.51	0.71	0.61	0.63	0.96	-	0.73	0.85
Svenbreen (8)	0.29	0.50	0.75	0.69	0.79	0.73	-	0.65
Werenskioldbreen (7)	0.51	0.60	0.93	0.95	0.87	0.85	0.65	-

Figure 9. Interannual variability of land-terminating Svalbard glaciers: (a) poorly correlated with Vestre Grønfjordbreen; (b) better correlated with Vestre Grønfjordbreen.

Martín-Español, A., E. Vasilenko, F. Navarro, J. Otero, J. Lapazaran, I. Lavrentiev, Y. Y. Macheret, and F. Machío. 2013. Radio-echo sounding and ice volume estimates of western Nordenskiöld Land glaciers, Svalbard. Annals of Glaciology 54:211–17. doi:10.3189/2013AoG64A109.

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Lavrentiev, I. I., A. F. Glazovsky, Y. Y. Macheret, V. V. Matskovsky, and A. Y. Muravyev. 2019. Reserves of ice in glaciers on the Nordenskiöld Land, Spitsbergen, and their changes over the last decades. Led i Sneg 59 (1):23–38. (In Russian, with English title and summary.). doi:10.15356/2076-6734-2019-1-23-38.

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