Flatisen, Svartisen: A Norwegian glacier in decline

ABSTRACT

The advance and retreat of glaciers, influenced by changes of local and regional climates, can result in dramatic landscape changes. The article, which follows up previous documentation of long-term studies at Svartisen, deals with changes of Flatisen: at the end of the 19th century, this was one of the largest glaciers of West Svartisen, and was supplied by accumulation areas that rose to > 1400  m a.s.l. It crossed the river Glomåga and ascended to 100  m above the valley floor. The river had a subglacial course until the 1920s. A proglacial lake, formed in front of the glacier in the 1930s and became larger throughout the rest of the 20th century. Changes of Flatisen between 1957 and 1990 were monitored during visits to the glacier. After the retreating front became inaccessible by land, photographs were taken. Early this century, the glacier retreated from the lake. A helicopter reconnaissance in July 2017 revealed that the surface was almost wholly below 1000  m a.s.l., the local equilibrium line altitude of recent years. Without a permanent accumulation zone, Flatisen is likely to disappear within the first half of the present century.

EDITORS:

• Ivar Svare Holand, Kerstin Potthoff

KEYWORDS:

• Flatisen
• glacier retreat
• Svartisen

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Jeffrey Stokes for giving me permission to use his unpublished studies and a photograph taken at Flatisen in 1957. I thank my brother-in-law John Davies for his company at Svartisen in 2017 and for giving me permission to use one of his photographs. I also acknowledge, with pleasure, the assistance provided by Miriam Jackson, research scientist at the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate’s Section for Glaciers, Ice and Snow. A constructive review by Chris Stokes was of great value. I thank Nick Scarle for draughting Fig. 1.

ORCID

Wilfred H. Theakstone http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0539-2280

Notes

1. J.C. Stokes, ‘Flatisen’, unpublished student dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1958.

2. Source: aerial photographs accessed from Kartverket, NIBIO & Statens karverket’s web page NorgeiBilder (www.Norgeibilder.no).