Dynamic Response of Surface Energy and Mass Balance of Vest- and Austfonna (Nordaustlandet, Svalbard) on Climate Change

The project „Dynamic Response of Surface Energy and Mass Balance of Vest- and Austfonna (Nordaustlandet, Svalbard) on Climate Change“ is a joint research approach of the Chair of Climatology (Department of Ecology) TU Berlin (Dieter Scherer, Roman Finkelnburg) the Department of Geography RWTH Aachen (Christoph Schneider, Marco Möller) and the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces (ZFL) University of Bonn (Matthias Braun). It is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and coordinated with other projects during the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007/2008. The study focuses on the response of arctic glaciers and ice caps on climate change. To that end we study the Vest- and Austfonna ice caps on Nordaustlandet, an island of the Svalbard archipelago.

Little is known about the current variability and prospective trends of the Energy and Mass Balance of these ice caps as well as their sensitivity due to climate change. Therefore we are carrying out in situ measurements like using automatic weather stations, measurements of the energy fluxes on the glacier surface, Mass Balance measurements and height and motion measurements via GPS. For the geophysical modelling we use meso and local scale climate models to investigate the connection to synoptic processes as well as their effects on the glacial progression. Additional routines for the calculation of melt and refreezing processes inside of the glaciers will be added. These coupled Atmosphere Cryosphere Models will be used to investigate the sensitivity of the ice masses as well as the changes in their flow dynamics due to global warming. Remote sensing products like the extent of the glaciers, the area of deglaciation and the motion fields will be used for the spatio-temporal validation of the models.