Meteorological and runoff time-series characteristics in a small, high-Arctic glaciated basin, Svalbard

✍ Scribed by A. J. Hodson; A. M. Gurnell; R. Washington; M. Tranter; M. J. Clark; J. O. Hagen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 486 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1085(19980315)12:3<509::aid-hyp591>3.0.co;2-8

✦ Synopsis

This paper examines characteristics of meteorological and runo time-series collected from the Brùggerbreen glacier basin, Svalbard, during 1991 and 1992. Proglacial discharge and electrical conductivity were monitored at two gauging stations: one immediately downstream of the terminus of Austre Brùggerbreen and another c. 2 . 5 km downstream, in order to assess the contribution of the intervening proglacial sandur. Meteorological time-series (incident radiation, wind speed and direction, air temperature and precipitation) were monitored on the proglacial sandur. Changes in wind direction, incident radiation receipt and air temperature were used as a basis for separating the time-series into dierent periods. These periods allowed the relative signi®cance of advective and incident (short-wave) radiative forcing of air temperatures to be determined at diurnal and synoptic time-scales. The analysis shows that incident radiation dominated over advection in the forcing of diurnal variations in air temperature during all the periods. At the synoptic scale, both processes were periodically dominant in forcing air temperature variability. An examination of synoptic charts supports the use of ground level measurements to describe the eect of energy advection upon the synoptic air temperature variability and indicates the role of large-scale circulation patterns in the delivery of energy for ablation under dierent conditions. Interrelationships between the hydrological and meteorological time-series are then used to characterize the response of the glacierized part of the catchment to meteorological forcing throughout the two ablation seasons. The analyses show that the recession of the snowpack across the proglacial and glacial portions of the basin has an important eect on the catchment contributing area contributing to runo and the lag between energy inputs and meltwater discharge outputs.