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Fate and Transport of Mercury in the Arctic Environmental Matrices under Varying Climatic Conditions
Published in Neloy Khare, Climate Change in the Arctic, 2022
VG Gopikrishna, VM Kannan, KP Krishnan, Mahesh Mohan
Climate change has already affected seasonal snow deposition and melting (Stern et al. 2012). The changing climate has adversely affected the glacier mass balance. The melting of snow produces a high quantity of meltwater, which contains metals and other toxic elements that have been deposited in the recent past. In this scenario, the Hg deposited during AMDE cannot hold more in the snow. Mercury can reach out through the meltwater into sediments of streams and fjords. Hence, the deposition time and adsorption of Hg in the soils will be reduced. The thickening of the active permafrost layer will have a synergic effect on the deposition of Hg in the soils. It can be concluded that the opportunity for deposition and residence time of Hg in soils is declining, which transports it faster to other environmental matrices such as air, water and sediments.
Mass Balance and Meteorological Conditions at Universidad Glacier, Central Chile
Published in Diego A. Rivera, Alex Godoy-Faundez, Mario Lillo-Saavedra, Andean Hydrology, 2018
Christophe Kinnard, Shelley MacDonell, Michal Petlicki, Carlos Mendoza Martinez, Jakob Abermann, Roberto Urrutia
Glacier mass balance (b) is the amount of mass gained or lost at a given point and time, usually expressed in millimeters or meters of water equivalent (mm w.e. or m w.e.) (e.g., Cuffey and Paterson, 2010). In practical terms, it is the difference between the volume of water deposited as snow (the sum of precipitation, vapor deposition, wind transport and avalanches), and the volume of water lost through ablation (the sum of melt, sublimation, winderosion and calving) on and from the glacier surface over a given period of time (dt). Mass changes arising from ice melt and refreezing of melt or rainwater at the glacier bed (basal mass balance) and within the glacier (internal mass balance), are typically of much smaller magnitude than the surface mass balance, and these terms are commonly ignored for mountain glaciers. Thus in this chapter the mass balance refers to the surface mass balance, i.e., mass changes resulting from the exchange of water and energy between the atmosphere and the glacier surface. The mass balance b at a point x on a glacier can be defined by: bx=∫t1t2bx,tdt $$ b\left( x \right)\,\, = \,\,\int_{{t1}}^{{t2}} {b\left( {x,t} \right)dt} $$
Spatiotemporal variations in surface albedo during the ablation season and linkages with the annual mass balance on Muz Taw Glacier, Altai Mountains
Published in International Journal of Digital Earth, 2022
Xiaoying Yue, Zhongqin Li, Feiteng Wang, Jun Zhao, Huilin Li, Changbin Bai
Mountain glaciers are recognized as a sensitive and high-confidence climate indicator (Roe, Baker, and Herla 2017; Yang et al. 2019). Moreover, mountain glaciers are important water resources at the headwaters of many prominent rivers (Lu et al. 2020; Chen et al. 2022), which impact the downstream water availability and sea level rise (Huss and Hock 2018; Zemp et al. 2019) and potentially influence natural hazards (Zheng et al. 2021). Glacier mass balance is a direct and immediate response to climate conditions (Zemp, Hoelzle, and Haeberli 2009). Net shortwave radiation contributes predominantly energy to glacier melting (Hock and Holmgren 2005; Gurgiser et al. 2013; Schaefer et al. 2020). Albedo, defined as the ratio of the outgoing radiant flux reflected from the Earth’s surface to the total incoming flux over the whole solar spectrum (Shuai et al. 2020), modulates the quantity of net shortwave radiation. Therefore, albedo is one of the key driving factors governing the surface mass-balance conditions of mountain glaciers. Glacier mass balance and its sensitivity to climate change depend to a large degree on the albedo and albedo feedback (Klok and Oerlemans 2004).
Glaciers and glaciation of North Island, New Zealand
Published in New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 2021
Shaun R. Eaves, Martin S. Brook
Figure 2 shows that the current distribution of glacier ice in New Zealand by latitude broadly corresponds with locations where the land surface intercepts the elevation of the mean annual 0°C isotherm. Ice volume in New Zealand is concentrated close to the high peaks of the Southern Alps in the vicinity of Aoraki Mt Cook and Tititea Mt Aspiring, where the high mountains extend several hundred metres above the annual freezing limit. In the North Island this only occurs at the summit of Ruapehu, where small glaciers persist. This simple analysis is consistent with more rigorous analyses that highlight the dominant role of temperature (Anderson and Mackintosh 2012) for controlling glacier mass change. Other climatic (precipitation, humidity, insolation, wind speed) and topographic (slope angle, shading) variables are play a modulating role on glacier mass balance, but are not captured in Figure 2. However, topoclimatic factors such as snowblow and shading can be significant terms in the mass balance glaciers that exist close to the temperature-based threshold for glaciation (Kuhn 1995) – such as the present-day glaciers on Mt. Ruapehu and perhaps other North Island glaciers that existed during the last glacial cycle (Figure 2; Section ‘Pre-historic glaciation’).
Geo-environmental consequences of obstructing the Bhagirathi River, Uttarakhand Himalaya, India
Published in Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 2020
S. P. Sati, Shubhra Sharma, Y. P. Sundriyal, Deepa Rawat, Manoj Riyal
Under such a scenario, if the water resources are to be harnessed, one must also be cautious of the contribution from the glacial-fed rivers in the Himalaya. It is likely that the glacier mass balance (melting/accumulation) would change significantly and unpredictably due to variable response time of the glaciers (size, orientation, precipitation amount, etc.) to the projected warming.