Meltwater Retention and Refreezing Processes in Glacier Snow and Firn
Date
2020-01-14
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Abstract
Glacier mass losses from all the regions of the world are a strong indication of global warming.
The sum of glacier and ice sheet contributions is the dominant source of global sea level rise
over the past two decades, and mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet is increasing due to
significant increases in surface melt and runoff. A fraction of summer meltwater is retained as
liquid water or refrozen ice as meltwater percolates into cold (sub-zero) underlying snow and
firn, which helps to reduce the summer runoff. However, there are challenges to quantifying both
infiltration and refreezing of meltwater in heterogeneous snow and firn and to understanding the
spatial variability of these processes. In this study, I introduce a new method to continuously
monitor meltwater infiltration and refreezing in snow and firn, applying Time Domain
Reflectometry (TDR) measurements of dielectric permittivity as an indirect measure of snow/firn
liquid water content. To my knowledge, this is the first application of TDR to studies of ice sheet
hydrology. I developed and conducted field experiments on Haig Glacier in the Canadian Rocky
Mountains and at DYE-2, Greenland, including in situ measurements of the evolution of
subsurface temperature and liquid water content through a summer melt season. My studies aim
to advance understanding of meltwater infiltration and refreezing processes in supraglacial snow
and firn. In addition, my field data can help the modelling community to build more accurate
models of firn hydrology in the percolation zone of glaciers and ice sheets, in support of glacier
mass balance modelling.
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Keywords
Glaciology, Ice Sheet Hydrology, Meltwater Retention, Climate Change, Hydrology
Citation
Samimi, S. (2022). Meltwater Retention and Refreezing Processes in Glacier Snow and Firn (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.)