Radio-echo sounding surveys over the Greenland ice sheet show clear, extensive internal layering, and comparisons with age–depth scales from deep ice cores allow for dating of the layering along the ice divide. We present one of the first attempts to extend the dated layers beyond the ice core drill sites by locating the depth of the Bølling–Allerød transition in >400 flight-lines using an automated fitting method. Results show that the transition is located in the upper one-third of the ice column in the central part of North Greenland, while the transition lowers towards the margin. This pattern mirrors the present surface accumulation, and also indicates that a substantial amount of pre-Holocene ice must be present in central North Greenland.

A method to estimate the flexural stiffness and effective elastic modulus of floating ice is described and analysed. The method is based on the analysis of water pressure records at two or three locations below the bottom of floating ice when flexural-gravity waves propagate through the ice. The relative errors in the calculations of the ice flexural stiffness and the water depth are analysed. The method is tested using data from field measurements in Tempelfjorden, Svalbard, where flexural-gravity waves were excited by an icefall at the front of the outflow glacier Tunabreen in February 2011.

Surface melt on a glacier can perturb the glaciochemical record beyond the natural variability. While the centre of the Greenland ice sheet is usually devoid of surface melt, many high-Arctic and alpine ice cores document frequent summertime melt events. Current hypotheses interpreting melt-affected ice-core chemistry rely on preferential elution of certain major ions. However, the precise nature of chemistry alteration is unknown because it is difficult to distinguish natural variability from melt effects in a perennially melt-affected site. We use eight trace-element snow chemistry records recovered from Summit, Greenland, to study spatial variability and melt effects on insoluble trace chemistry and physical stratigraphy due to artificially introduced meltwater. Differences between non-melt and melt-affected chemistry were significantly greater than the spatial variability in chemistry represented by nearest-neighbour pairs. Melt-perturbed trace elements, particularly rare earth elements, retained their seasonal stratigraphies, suggesting that trace elements may serve as robust chemical indicators for annual layers even in melt-affected study areas. Results suggest trace-element transport via meltwater percolation will deposit eluted material down-pit in refrozen areas below the nearest-surface chemistry peak. In our experiments, snow chemistry analyses are more sensitive to melt perturbations than density changes or unprocessed near-infrared digital imagery.

The Finnish Meteorological Institute has installed image-capturing devices on some Baltic Sea coastal radars for operational sea-ice monitoring and ice product validation. These devices produce radar images, which are saved operationally at about every 2 min. These data can efficiently be utilized in automated tracking of ice motion over sequences of radar images. Reliable estimates of point-wise ice drift can be used as virtual drifter buoys to validate fine-scale ice models. For this purpose we have developed an algorithm, which first locates objects that can reliably be recognized from one radar image to another, and then tracks the motion of these objects until they are lost by the algorithm. The recognizable objects in the first image of an image sequence are located by requiring an object to include a textural content, i.e. the object does not solely consist of a uniform area, and detected edge corner points. The corner points are required to exclude straight linear edges. After locating a suitable number of traceable objects, the tracking is performed between each pair of successive images using a two-resolution phase-correlation algorithm. We have tested the tracking algorithm using image sequences of two coastal radars collected during the 2010/11 and 2011/12 winters.

Icelandic glaciers cover ∼11 000 km2 in area and store ∼3600 km3 of ice. Starting in 2008 during the International Polar Year, accurate digital elevation models (DEMs) of the glaciers are being produced with airborne lidar. More than 90% of the glaciers have been surveyed in this effort, including Vatnajökull, Hofsjökull, Myrdalsjökull, Drangajökull, Eyjafjallajökull and several smaller glaciers. The publicly available DEMs are useful for glaciological and geological research, including studies of ice-volume changes, estimation of bias in mass-balance measurements, studies of jökulhlaups and subglacial lakes formed by subglacial geothermal areas, and for mapping of crevasses. The lidar mapping includes a 500-1000 m wide ice-free buffer zone around the ice margins which contains many glacio-geomorphological features, and therefore the new DEMs have proved useful in geological investigations of proglacial areas. Comparison of the lidar DEMs with older maps confirms the rapid ongoing volume changes of the Icelandic ice caps which have been shown by mass-balance measurements since 1995/96. In some cases, ice-volume changes derived by comparing the lidar measurements with older DEMs are in good agreement with accumulated ice-volume changes derived from traditional mass-balance measurements, but in other cases such a comparison indicates substantial biases in the traditional mass-balance records.

We studied the variability of elemental carbon (EC) over 3 years (2009–11) in the winter snowpack of Storglaciären, Sweden. The goal of this study was to relate the seasonal variation in EC to specific snow accumulation events in order to improve understanding of how different atmospheric circulation patterns control the deposition of EC. Specifically, we related meteorological parameters (e.g. wind direction, precipitation) to snow physical properties, EC content, stable-isotope δ18O ratios and anion concentrations in the snowpack. The distribution of EC in the snowpack varied between years. Low EC contents corresponded to a predominance of weather systems originating in the northwest, i.e. North Atlantic. Analysis of single layers within the snowpacks showed that snow layers enriched in heavy isotopes coincided predominantly with low EC contents but high chloride and sulfate concentration. Based on this isotopic and geochemical evidence, snow deposited during these events had a strong oceanic, i.e. North Atlantic, imprint. In contrast, snow layers with high EC content coincided with snow layers depleted in heavy isotopes but high anion concentrations, indicating a more continental source of air masses and origin of EC from industrial emissions.

This study uses boreholes, ground temperature monitoring and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in order to understand the internal structure and composition of a rock glacier in the upper Choapa valley, northern Chile. The rock glacier is a small valley-side feature, 200 m long and ranging between 3710 and 3780 ma.s.l. Two boreholes were drilled down to depths of 20 and 25 m, respectively, using the diamond drillhole technique. An ice-rock mixture was encountered in the boreholes, with heterogeneous ice content averaging 15-30%. Data from common-midpoint (CMP) and constant-offset (CO) GPR surveys acquired, respectively, near the boreholes and across the whole rock glacier were processed to highlight the internal stratigraphy and variations in the radar-wave velocity. The GPR profiles depict a rock glacier constituted of stacked and generally concordant layers, with a thickness ranging from 10 m in its upper part to ∼30m towards its terminus. The CMP analysis highlights radar-wave velocities of 0.13-0.16 m ns–1 in the first 20 m of the structure. Larger vertical and lateral velocity variations are highlighted from CO data, reflecting the heterogeneous composition of the rock glacier and the likely presence of unfrozen water in the structure. Given the average air temperature registered at the site (+0.5°C), the near-melting-point temperature registered in the boreholes over more than a year and the presence of locally high water content inferred from GPR data, it is thought that the permafrost in the rock glacier is currently degrading.

A C-band sea-ice radar (SIR) network system was operated to monitor the sea-ice conditions off the Okhotsk Sea coast of northern Hokkaido, Japan, from 1969 to 2004. The system was based on three radar stations, which were capable of continuously monitoring the sea surface as far as 60 km offshore along a 250 km long coastal section. In 2004 the SIR system was closed down and a sea surface monitoring programme was commenced using high-frequency (HF) radar; this system provides information on surface currents in open-water conditions, while areas with ‘no signal’ can be identified as sea ice. The present study compares HF radar data with SIR data to evaluate their feasibility for sea-ice remote sensing. The period of overlapping data was 1.5 months. The results show that HF radar information can be utilized for ice-edge mapping although it cannot fully compensate for the loss of the SIR system. In particular, HF radar does not provide ice concentration, ice roughness and geometrical structures or ice kinematics. The probability of ice-edge detection by HF radar was 0.9 and the correlation of the ice-edge distance between the radars was 0.7.

We show that geophysical methods offer an effective means of quantifying snow thickness and density. Opportunistic (efficient but non-optimized) seismic refraction and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys were performed on Storglaciären, Sweden, co-located with a snow pit that shows the snowpack to be 1.73 m thick, with density increasing from ∼120 to ∼500 kg m–3 (with a +50 kg m–3 anomaly between 0.73 and 0.83 m depth). Depths estimated for two detectable GPR reflectors, 0.76 ±0.02 and 1.71 ± 0.03 m, correlate extremely well with ground-truth observations. Refraction seismic predicts an interface at 1.90 ± 0.31 m depth, with a refraction velocity (3730 ± 190 ms–1) indicative of underlying glacier ice. For density estimates, several standard velocity-density relationships are trialled. In the best case, GPR delivers an excellent density estimate for the upper snow layer (observed = 321 ± 74 kg m–3, estimated = 319 ± 10 kgm–3) but overestimates the density of the lower layer by 20%. Refraction seismic delivers a bulk density of 404 ±22 kgm–3 compared with a ground-truth average of 356 ± 22 kg m–3. We suggest that geophysical surveys are an effective complement to mass-balance measurements (particularly for controlling estimates of snow thickness between pits) but should always be validated against ground-truth observations.

This study presents a method that allows continuous monitoring of mass balance for remote or inaccessible glaciers, based on repeated oblique photography. Hourly to daily pictures from two automatic cameras overlooking two large valley glaciers in the Swiss Alps are available for eight ablation seasons (2004–11) in total. We determine the fraction of snow-covered glacier surface from orthorectified and georeferenced images and combine this information with simple accumulation and melt modelling using meteorological data. By applying this approach, the evolution of glacier-wide mass balance throughout the ablation period can be directly calculated, based on terrestrial remote-sensing data. Validation against independent in situ mass-balance observations indicates good agreement. Our methodology has considerable potential for the remote determination of mountain glacier mass balance at high temporal resolution and could be applied using both repeated terrestrial and air-/spaceborne observations.

Disintegration of several ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula demonstrates a mechanism that involves the conversion of a contiguous ice shelf into an expanding plume of ice-shelf fragments that spreads rapidly across the ocean surface. The growth of surface area and energetic expansion are hypothesized to be driven by gravitational potential energy release associated with iceberg capsize and break-up. Here we investigate this process using a water tank filled with plastic icebergs scaled to represent a laboratory analogue of an expanding plume of ice-shelf fragments (icebergs). Our experiments suggest that hydrodynamic pressure within the water separating neighbouring icebergs is sufficient to couple the motion when their separation is comparable to the iceberg size. This allows one iceberg’s capsize to initiate a ‘domino-like’ effect, where the entire array will subsequently capsize in the same direction and expand across the water surface. Our experimental results motivate the suggestion that cooperative iceberg hydrodynamics is a process that enhances the expansion of ice-shelf fragment plumes during ice-shelf disintegration.

We report on the application of optical televiewing (OPTV) to the uppermost 630 m of the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) deep ice borehole, Greenland. The resulting log reveals numerous natural and drilling-related properties, including the integrity of the borehole casing and its joints, the presence of drill-tooth scoring on the ice wall of the borehole and the presence of regularly repeated layering, interpreted to be annual, to a depth approaching 200 m. A second OPTV log was acquired from a nearby shallow borehole. With the exception of the uppermost ∼10 m, this log shows a gradual decrease in luminosity with depth, interpreted as a decrease in light scattering with firnification. This shallow log also clearly images annual layers, allowing the construction of an age-depth scale. Comparing this with an independent core-based scale reveals that the OPTV record yields an age of 1724 at the deepest common point of both scales (80 m), 13 years older than the core-based record at 1737. However, all of this deviation accrues in the uppermost ∼30 m of the OPTV record where highly reflective snow saturates the luminosity of the borehole image, an artefact that can be reduced by further adaptation of the OPTV system.

Large parts of the Arctic are covered by water bodies. Ice covers on lakes and rivers prohibit the exchange of heat and water vapor between the water body and the atmosphere. With melt onset, the ecosystem is subjected to changes, making it important to monitor the ice decay. As ground-based monitoring of these vast uninhabited areas is expensive and thus restricted to a few locations, remote-sensing techniques need to be applied. Here we evaluate the performance of the unsupervised k-means classification for dividing ice and water fractions on lakes and river channels from spaceborne radar data in comparison to threshold-based methods. The analysis is based on six TerraSAR-X and three RADARSAT-2 images, obtained during spring 2011 over the central Lena Delta in northern Siberia. The performance of the k-means classification is found to be similar to a fixed-threshold approach. As the k-means classification does not need prior statistical backscatter analyses to account for the radar configuration and ice conditions, it is easier to use than the threshold method. In addition, we found that the application of a low-pass filter prior to the classification of river channels and a closing filter on the classification results of lakes strongly improves the overall classification results.

On RADARSAT imagery, the southern margin of the onset zone of Bindschadler Ice Stream, West Antarctica, manifests a multi-banded feature, with brightness varying across the bands and oscillating along each band. Ground-based radar profiles across the margin reveal folds in the firn stratigraphy associated with this pattern and provide evidence for correlation between the depth of shallow isochrones and the RADARSAT backscatter intensity on each profile, allowing us to interpret the banded feature for firn-layer geometry in three dimensions. We use a kinematic model of isochrone depth evolution to show how layer folding and the band expression may result from deformation and advection in the near-surface flow field at ice-stream margins, even with steady flow. The model predicts the formation of longitudinally patterned bands when the ice-stream acceleration fluctuates along flow. Concerted study of the planform and stratigraphy of other RADARSAT-detected features on the ice sheets may help us understand their origin.

We used measurements of radar-detected stratigraphy, surface ice-flow velocities and accumulation rates to investigate relationships between local valley-glacier and regional ice-sheet dynamics in and around the Schmidt Hills, Pensacola Mountains, Antarctica. Ground-penetrating radar profiles were collected perpendicular to the long axis of the Schmidt Hills and the margin of Foundation Ice Stream (FIS). Within the valley confines, the glacier consists of blue ice, and profiles show internal stratigraphy dipping steeply toward the nunataks and truncated at the present-day ablation surface. Below the valley confines, the blue ice is overlain by firn. Data show that upward-progressing overlap of actively accumulating firn onto valley-glacier ice is slightly less than ice flow out of the valleys over the past ∼1200 years. The apparent slightly negative mass balance (-0.25 cm a-1) suggests that ice-margin elevations in the Schmidt Hills may have lowered over this time period, even without a change in the surface elevation of FIS. Results suggest that (1) mass-balance gradients between local valley glaciers and regional ice sheets should be considered when using local information to estimate regional ice surface elevation changes; and (2) interpretation of shallow ice structures imaged with radar can provide information about local ice elevation changes and stability.

Sea-ice hazard causes serious harm to aquaculture, marine navigation, offshore oil production and other activities in the Bohai Sea, China. To study the spatial distribution characteristics of sea-ice-hazard risk in Bohai is therefore desirable. The thickness and area of sea ice in the Bohai Sea during the winters (December–March) of 1987–2011 were estimated using data from the NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) satellite. The sea-ice thickness was converted into a sea-ice-hazard index after defining this index, and the different sea-ice-hazard risk grades were classified. The occurrence probability of sea-ice hazard was also calculated using fuzzy risk theory, and the spatial distribution characteristics of sea-ice-hazard risk in the Bohai Sea were studied. The results show that the sea-ice-hazard risk for offshore aquaculture decreased as the offshore distance increased. All the oilfields in Liaodong Bay are influenced by sea-ice hazard, two of the fields in Bohai Bay are slightly affected and the remaining fields are not influenced. The risk for marine navigation is related to the location of the port and the distance from the port. The risk in the port area is the highest; it is reduced by more than 30% at distances 10 km away from the port.

Using June–August surface meteorological measurements for 2004–10 we found that the duration of the summer melt season at elevations of 1800, 1300 and 1000 m a.s.l. on Devon Ice Cap, Canada, increased at a rate of 3.4 (p < 0.1; weak significance), 6.1 (p< 0.01) and 8.8 (p < 0.05) days a−1, respectively. The calculated surface melt rate at 1300m a.s.l. increased from 74 to 133 cm w.e. a−1 between 2007 and 2010. These changes are linked to two types of change in the Arctic atmospheric circulation. Strengthening of the 500 hPa ridge over the Arctic in June–July resulted in increases in both the advection of warm air into the region and the occurrence of cloud-free conditions over the ice cap, causing the available melt energy to increase by 4–24% relative to June–July 2007–10 mean conditions. More frequent southwesterly low-pressure systems in August after 2004 accounted for a 12–38% increase in available melt energy relative to the August 2007–10 daily mean due to advection of warm air into the Arctic, reduced incoming shortwave radiation and increased net longwave radiation. This delayed the timing of freeze-up by an average of 5.5 days a–1 (p < 0.05) at the three sites over 2004–10.

Triglav glacier is situated on the northeast side of the highest Slovenian mountain peak, Triglav; it is a glacier remnant of the Little Ice Age. Next to Triglav glacier is the Kredarica mountain hut with a meteorological station. At 2514 ma.s.l., it is the highSest meteorological station in Slovenia, and has been in continuous operation since 1954. In this paper, the acquisition of three-dimensional data from archived, non-metric, panoramic, Horizont images is presented. The annual variations of Triglav glacier’s area are given for the period 1976–2010, together with monthly snow variations for the years 1977 and 1998. Additionally, theoretical and empirical volumes and an empirical thickness reduction are computed. The changes to Triglav glacier are compared with the summarized meteorological data from the Kredarica meteorological station. In 1976 Triglav glacier covered an area of 15 ha; by 1992 this had shrunk to 4.3 ha, and it reached its minimum of 0.6 ha in 2003, as measured from Horizont images. Since then the glacier has been mainly conserved by the snow cover from previous winters.

The Woore Moraine, situated within the Cheshire Plain, is one of the largest glacial landforms in Britain. However, its key characteristics, internal structure and glaciological significance are poorly understood due to limited exposure of its key geological features. This paper focuses on the results of a suite of complementary geophysical techniques (ground-penetrating radar, electrical resistivity tomography and seismic refraction) that were used to image the interior structure of the moraine and help determine its origin. Geophysical imaging reveals a two-layer moraine structure comprising a thin and heterogeneous carapace of intercalated sediments overlying a core of subglacial clay-rich diamicton and proglacial sands deformed by a series of fore- and back-thrusts. These features indicate that the moraine is glaciotectonic in origin, involving initial compression of proglacial sediments against a bedrock obstruction and subsequent modification due to overriding.

We have studied the accuracy of ice thickness (hi) retrieval based on night-time MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) ice surface temperature (Ts) images and HIRLAM (High Resolution Limited Area Model) weather forcing data from the Arctic. The study area is the Kara Sea and eastern part of the Barents Sea, and the study period spans November-April 2008–11 with 199 hi charts. For cloud masking of the MODIS data we had to use manual methods in order to improve detection of thin clouds and ice fog. The accuracy analysis of the retrieved hi was conducted with different methods, taking into account the inaccuracy of the HIRLAM weather forcing data. Maximum reliable hi under different air-temperature and wind-speed ranges was 35–50 cm under typical weather conditions (air temperature <–20cC, wind speed <5ms–1) present in the MODIS data. The accuracy is best for the 15–30 cm thickness range, ∼38%. The largest hi uncertainty comes from air temperature data. Our ice-thickness limits are more conservative than those in previous studies where numerical weather prediction model data were not used in the hi retrieval. Our study gives new detailed insight into the capability of Ts-based hi retrieval in the Arctic marginal seas during freeze-up and wintertime, and should also benefit work where MODIS hi charts are used.