Evidence for seasonal subglacial outburst events at a polythermal glacier,Finsterwalderbreen, Svalbard

Bulk runoff and meteorological data suggest the occurrence of two meltwater outburst events at Finsterwalderbreen, Svalbard, during the 1995 and 1999 melt seasons. Increased bulk meltwater concentrations of Cl^? during the outbursts indicate the release of snowmelt from storage. Bulk meltwater hydrochemical data and suspended sediment concentrations suggest that this snowmelt accessed a chemical weathering environment characterized by high rock:water ratios and long rock–water contact times. This is consistent with a subglacial origin. The trigger for both the 1995 and 1999 outbursts is believed to be high rates of surface meltwater production and the oversupply of meltwater to areas of the glacier bed that were at the pressure melting point, but which were unconnected to the main subglacial drainage network. An increase in subglacial water pressure to above the overburden pressure lead to the forcing of a hydrological connection between the expanding subglacial reservoir and the ice‐marginal channelized system. The purging of ice blocks from the glacier during the outbursts may indicate the breach of an ice dam during connection. Although subglacial meltwater issued continually from the glacier terminus via a subglacial upwelling during both melt seasons, field observations showed outburst meltwaters were released solely via an ice‐marginal channel. It is possible that outburst events are a seasonal phenomenon at this glacier and reflect the periodic drainage of meltwaters from the same subglacial reservoir from year to year. However, the location of this reservoir is uncertain. A 100 m high bedrock ridge traverses the glacier 6·5 km from its terminus. The overdeepened area up‐glacier from this is the most probable site for subglacial meltwater accumulation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geometry,bed topography and drainage system structure of the haut glacier d'Arolla,Switzerland

As part of an integrated study of the hydrology, meltwater quality and dynamics of the Haut Glacier d'Arolla, Switzerland, the glacier's drainage network structure was determined from patterns of dye recovery in 342 injection experiments conducted from 47 moulins distributed widely across the glacier. This structure was compared with theoretical predictions based upon reconstructed patterns of water flow governed by (a) the subglacial hydraulic potential surface, and (b) the subglacial bedrock surface. These reconstructions were based on measurements of ice surface and bedrock topography obtained by a combination of ground survey and radio-echo sounding techniques. The two reconstructions simulate the drainage system structures expected for (a) closed channels, in which water is pressurized by the overlying ice, and (b) gravity-driven, open-channel flow. The closed-channel model provides the best fit to the observed structure, even though theoretical calculations suggest that, under summer discharge conditions, open-channel flow may be widespread beneath the glacier. Possible reasons for this apparent discrepancy are discussed.     

Initial results from a distributed,physically based model of glacier hydrology

This paper describes the development and testing of a distributed, physically based model of glacier hydrology. The model is used to investigate the behaviour of the hydrological system of Haut Glacier d'Arolla, Valais, Switzerland. The model has an hourly time-step and three main components: a surface energy balance submodel, a surface flow routing submodel and a subglacial hydrology submodel. The energy balance submodel is used to calculate meltwater production over the entire glacier surface. The surface routing submodel routes meltwater over the glacier surface from where it is produced to where it either enters the subglacial hydrological system via moulins or runs off the glacier surface. The subglacial hydrology submodel calculates water flow in a network of conduits, which can evolve over the course of a melt season simulation in response to changing meltwater inputs. The main model inputs are a digital elevation model of the glacier surface and its surrounding topography, start-of-season snow depth distribution data and meteorological data. Model performance is evaluated by comparing predictions with field measurements of proglacial stream discharge, subglacial water pressure (measured in a borehole drilled to the glacier bed) and water velocities inferred from dye tracer tests. The model performs best in comparison with the measured proglacial stream discharges, but some of the substantial features of the other two records are also reproduced. In particular, the model results show the high amplitude water pressure cycles observed in the borehole in the mid-melt season and the complex velocity/discharge hysteresis cycles observed in dye tracer tests. The results show that to model outflow hydrographs from glacierized catchments effectively, it is necessary to simulate spatial and temporal variations in surface melt rates, the delaying effect of the surface snowpack and the configuration of the subglacial drainage system itself. The model's ability to predict detailed spatial and temporal patterns of subglacial water pressures and velocities should make it a valuable tool for aiding the understanding of glacier dynamics and hydrochemistry. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flow separation on Zongo Glacier,Cordillera Real,Bolivia

Meltwaters collected from the proglacial stream escaping from Zongo Glacier (2·1 km²), Bolivia (16°S), have been monitored in order to analyse the internal drainage system of an Andean glacier. Electrical conductivity has been measured sporadically between February 1995 and March 1996, during 16 one-day field surveys, under various meteorological conditions in summer and winter. The mixing-model technique based on the electrical conductivity is used for a quantitative separation of discharge which is derived from continuous water level registration. Tracer experiments (mainly uranine dye and NaCl salt) have been carried out from March to June 1997 to obtain information about the internal drainage system. In the tropical Andes, accumulation only occurs in austral summer, whereas ablation occurs throughout the year and is higher during the accumulation season, between November and March. The assumptions involved in the use of mixing models for analysis of glacial drainage structure are applicable for tropical glaciers because glacial conduits do not suffer complete closure, and are permanently supplied by meltwaters, even in wintertime. Two components of discharge are separated: an englacial flow originating from surface meltwater which is routed without chemical enrichment, and offering low electrical conductivity; and a subglacial one routed in contact with bedrock or sediments showing high ionic concentrations. Electrical conductivity of meltwater varies diurnally, inversely to discharge fluctuations. According to this behaviour, total discharge is mainly formed by the englacial component. The drainage structures for englacial and subglacial flow have to be widely interconnected, as indicated by diurnal variations of the subglacial discharge. Comparison of hydrograph separation based on conductivity and on ¹⁸O isotope confirms that the subglacial flow is influenced by surface melting. A hydrograph separation of the subglacial flow is proposed, between a diurnal variable component, composed of water coming from the englacial network, and a base flow, which may vary seasonally. The dye tracing experiments confirm the drainage complexity of Zongo Glacier and demonstrate the interest of identifying three main drainage components. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Excavation of subglacial bedrock channels by seasonal meltwater flow

Subglacial water flow drives the excavation of a variety of bedrock channels including tunnel valleys and inner gorges. Subglacial floods of various magnitudes – events occurring once per year or less frequently with discharges larger than a few hundred cubic metres per second – are often invoked to explain the erosive power of subglacial water flow. In this study we examine whether subglacial floods are necessary to carve bedrock channels, or if more frequent melt season events (e.g. daily production of meltwater) can explain the formation of substantial bedrock channels over a glacial cycle. We use a one‐dimensional numerical model of bedrock erosion by subglacial meltwater, where water flows through interacting distributed and channelized drainage systems. The shear stresses produced drive bedrock erosion by bed‐ and suspended‐load abrasion. We show that seasonal meltwater discharge can incise an incipient bedrock channel a few tens of centimetres deep and several metres wide, assuming abrasion is the only mechanism of erosion, a particle size of D=256 mm and a prescribed sediment supply per unit width. Using the same sediment characteristics, flood flows yield wider but significantly shallower bedrock channels than seasonal meltwater flows. Furthermore, the smaller the shear stresses produced by a flood, the deeper the bedrock channel. Shear stresses produced by seasonal meltwater are sufficient to readily transport boulders as bedload. Larger flows produce greater shear stresses and the sediment is carried in suspension, which produces fewer contacts with the bed and less erosion. We demonstrate that seasonal meltwater discharge can excavate bedrock volumes commensurate with channels several tens of metres to a few hundred metres wide and several tens of metres deep over several thousand years. Such simulated channels are commensurate with published observations of tunnel valleys and inner gorges. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Streamflow response to the rapid retreat of a lake‐calving glacier

There has been increasing attention over the last decade to the potential effects of glacier retreat on downstream discharge and aquatic habitat. This study focused on streamflow variability downstream of Bridge Glacier in the southern Coast Mountains of BC between 1979 and 2014, prior to and during a period in which the glacier experienced enhanced calving and rapid retreat across a lake‐filled basin. Here we combined empirical trend detection and a conceptual‐parametric hydrological model to address the following hypotheses: (1) streamflow trends in late summer and early autumn should reflect the opposing influences of climatic warming (which would tend to increase unit‐area meltwater production) and the reduction in glacier area (which would tend to reduce the total volume of meltwater generated), and (2) winter streamflow should increase because of displacement of lake water as ice flows past the grounding line and calves into the lake basin. In relation to the first hypothesis, we found no significant trends in monthly discharge during summer. However, applying regression analysis to account for air temperature and precipitation variations, weak but statistically significant negative trends were detected for August and melt season discharge. The HBV‐EC model was applied using time‐varying glacier cover, as derived from Landsat imagery. Relative to simulations based on constant glacier extent, model results indicated that glacier recession caused a decline in mean monthly streamflow of 9% in August and 11% in September. These declines in late‐summer streamflow are consistent with the results from our empirical analysis. The second hypothesis is supported by the finding of positive trends for December, January, and February discharge. Despite the modelled declines in late‐summer mean monthly streamflow, recorded discharge data exhibited neither positive nor negative trends during the melt season, suggesting that Bridge Glacier may currently be at or close to the point of peak water. Further analysis of the impact of lake‐terminating glaciers on downstream discharge is needed to refine the peak water model. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Switch in chemical weathering caused by the mass balance variability in a Himalayan glacierized basin: a case of Chhota Shigri Glacier

Long-term data (2003–2015) on meltwater chemistry, mass balance and discharge of a benchmark glacier (Chhota Shigri Glacier, India) were studied to determine any association between these variables. To infer the factors governing the alteration of chemical weathering processes in glacierized basins, multi-annual records of the hydrochemical indices (Ca²⁺+Mg²⁺/Na⁺+K⁺) and the C-ratio were also examined. A succession of negative mass balance years has resulted in a decline in solute concentrations in the runoff, as discharge has increased. The (Ca²⁺+Mg²⁺/Na⁺+K⁺) and C-ratio are highest during periods of negative annual mass balance, when the spatial extent of the channelized drainage system increases. Conversely, these ratios are lowest in positive mass balance years, when the spatial extent of the channelized drainage system decreases, and chemical weathering in the distributed drainage system becomes more dominant. This paper is the first to show the inter-annual linkages between meltwater chemistry, mass balance and discharge for a valley glacier.     

Trickle or treat: The dynamics of nutrient export from polar glaciers

Cold‐based polar glacier watersheds contain well‐defined supraglacial, ice‐marginal, and proglacial elements that differ in their degree of hydrologic connectivity, sources of water (e.g., snow, ice, and/or sediment pore water), meltwater residence times, allochthonous and autochthonous nutrient, and sediment loads. We investigated 11 distinct hydrological units along the supraglacial, ice marginal, and proglacial flow paths that drain Joyce Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. We found that these units play unique and important roles as sources and/or sinks for dissolved inorganic nitrogen and dissolved inorganic phosphorus and for specific fractions of dissolved organic matter (DOM) as waters are routed from the glacier into nutrient‐poor downstream ecosystems. Changes in nutrient export from the glacial system as a whole were observed as the routing and residence times of meltwater changed throughout the melt season. The concentrations of major ions in the proglacial stream were inversely proportional to discharge, such that there was a relatively constant “trickle” of these solutes into downstream ecosystems. In contrast, NO₃^? concentrations generally increased with discharge, resulting in delivery of episodic pulses of dissolved inorganic nitrogen‐rich water (“treats”) into those same ecosystems during high discharge events. DOM concentrations or fluorescence did not correlate with discharge rate, but high variability in DOM concentrations or fluorescence suggests that DOM may be exported downstream as episodic treats, but with spatial and/or temporal patterns that remain poorly understood. The strong, nutrient‐specific responses to changes in hydrology suggest that polar glacier drainage systems may export meltwater with nutrient compositions that vary within and between melt seasons and watersheds. Because nutrient dynamics identified in this study differ between glacier watersheds with broadly similar hydrology, climate, and geology, we emphasize the need to develop conceptual models of nutrient export that thoroughly integrate the biogeochemical and hydrological processes that control the sources, fate, and export of nutrients from each system.     

Seasonal changes in the morphology of the subglacial drainage system,Haut Glacier d'Arolla,Switzerland

Dye tracing techniques were used to investigate the glacier-wide pattern of change in the englacial/subglacial drainage system of Haut Glacier d'Arolla during the ablation seasons of 1990 and 1991. Analysis of breakthrough curve characteristics indicate that over the course of a melt season, a system of major channels developed by headward growth at the expense of a hydraulically inefficient distributed system. By the end of the melt season, this channel system extended at least 3·3 km from the snout of the 4 km long glacier and drained the bulk of supraglacially derived meltwater passing through the glacier. The upper limit of the channel system closely followed the retreating snowline up-glacier. Rates of headward channel growth reached c. 65 m d⁻¹, although these rates decreased in the upper 1 km of the glacier where snowline retreat exposed a patchy firn aquifer. It appears that the removal of snow (with its high albedo and significant water storage capacity) from the glacier surface resulted in a dramatic increase in the volume of runoff into moulins, and in the peakedness of daily runoff cycles. This induced transient high water pressures within the distributed drainage system, which caused it to evolve rapidly into a channelised system. It is therefore likely that, at a local scale, channel growth occurred down-glacier from moulins, and that the overall up-glacier-directed pattern of channel formation was caused by the retreating snowline exposing new moulins and crevasses to inputs of ice-derived meltwater. Damping of diurnal melt inputs by storage in the firm aquifer accounts for the slowing of channel growth in the upper glacier. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

VARIABILITY IN THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF IN SITU SUBGLACIAL MELTWATERS

Meltwaters collected from boreholes drilled to the base of the Haut Glacier d'Arolla, Switzerland have chemical compositions that can be classified into three main groups. The first group is dilute, whereas the second group is similar to, though generally less concentrated in major ions, than contemporaneous bulk glacial runoff. The third group is more concentrated than any observed bulk runoff, including periods of flow recession. Waters of the first group are believed to represent supraglacial meltwater and ice melted during drilling. Limited solutes may be derived from interactions with debris in the borehole. The spatial pattern of borehole water levels and borehole water column stratification, combined with the chemical composition of the different groups, suggest that the second group represent samples of subglacial waters that exchange with channel water on a diurnal basis, and that the third group represent samples of water draining through a ‘distributed’ subglacial hydraulic system. High NO⁻₃ concentrations in the third group suggest that snowmelt may provide a significant proportion of the waters and that the residence time of the waters at the bed in this particular section of the distributed system is of the order of a few months. The high NO⁻₃ concentrations also suggest that some snowmelt is routed along different subglacial flowpaths to those used by icemelt. The average SO²⁻₄: (HCO⁻₃ + SO²⁻₄) ratio of the third group of meltwaters is 0.3, suggesting that sulphide oxidation and carbonate dissolution (which gives rise to a ratio of 0.5) cannot provide all the HCO⁻₃ to solution. Hence, carbonate hydrolysis may be occurring before sulphide oxidation, or there may be subglacial sources of CO₂, perhaps arising from microbial oxidation of organic C in bedrock, air bubbles in glacier ice or pockets of air trapped in subglacial cavities. The channel marginal zone is identified as an area that may influence the composition of bulk meltwater during periods of recession flow and low diurnal discharge regimes. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Products of an effusive subglacial rhyolite eruption: Bláhnúkur, Torfajökull, Iceland

We present field observations from Bláhnúkur, a small volume (<0.1 km³) subglacial rhyolite edifice at the Torfajökull central volcano, south-central Iceland. Bláhnúkur was probably emplaced during the last glacial period (ca. 115–11 ka). The characteristics of the deposits suggest that they were formed by an effusive eruption in an exclusively subglacial environment, beneath a glacier >400 m thick. Lithofacies associations attest to complex patterns of volcano-ice interaction. Erosive channels at the base of the subglacial sequence are filled by both eruption-derived material and subglacial till, which show evidence for deposition by flowing meltwater. This suggests that meltwater was able to drain away from the vent area during the eruption. Much of the subglacial volcanic deposits consist of conical-to-irregularly shaped lava lobes typically 5–10 m long, set in poorly sorted breccias with an ash-grade matrix. A gradational lavabreccia contact at the base of lava lobes represents a fossilised fragmentation interface, driven by magma-water interaction as the lava flowed over poorly consolidated, waterlogged debris. Sets of columnar joints on the upper surfaces of lobes are interpreted as ice-contact features. The morphology of the lobes suggests that they chilled within conically shaped subglacial cavities 2–5 m high. Avalanche deposits mantling the flanks of Bláhnúkur appear to have been generated by the collapse of lava lobes and surrounding breccia. A variety of deposit characteristics suggests that this occurred both prior to and after quenching of the lava lobes. Collapse events may have occurred when the supporting ice walls were melted back from around the cooling lava lobes and breccias. Much larger lava flows were emplaced in the latter stages of the eruption. Columnar joint patterns suggest that these flowed and chilled within subglacial cavities 20 m high and 100–200 m in length. There is little evidence for magma-water interaction at lava flow margins which suggests that these larger cavities were drained of meltwater. As rhyolite magma rose to the base of the glacier, the nature of the subglacial cavity system played an important role in governing the style of eruption and the volcanic facies generated. We present evidence that the cavity system evolved during the eruption, reflecting variations in both melting rate and edifice growth that are best explained by a fluctuating eruption rate.     

ISOTOPIC AND IONIC VARIATIONS IN GLACIER RIVER WATER DURING THREE CONTRASTING ABLATION SEASONS

The significance of the baseflow component of glacier river discharge in summer varies with geographical location, altitude, glacier geometry and glacier size. Baseflow is maintained by meltwater generated above the transient equilibrium line and by water released from temporary storage on, in or beneath the glacier. At the Norwegian glacier Austre Okstindbreen, where precipitation is generally high throughout the year and the summers are cool and wet, observations in three successive, but contrasting, years have shown that Na⁺ ion concentrations in the glacier river water are influenced strongly by the amount of snowmelt. This itself depends on the preceding winter conditions, which determine the amount of accumulation, and on the current summer's weather. The efficiency of the glacier's drainage systems depends on the general progress of summer ablation. The speed with which the systems develop influences ion provision from subglacial sources. Ca²⁺ ion concentrations are largely determined by subglacial conditions. Oxygen isotope variations in glacier river water reflect the relative contributions made to total discharge by snow meltwater and other sources; the composition of the snow cover, which is a function of winter temperatures, has a strong influence. Ice meltwater has low isotopic variability, but the isotopic composition of rainfall varies markedly. A simple model of mixing of englacial and subglacial waters, each of a constant composition, cannot be applied to a high-latitude glacier of the size and altitudinal range of Austre Okstindbreen.     

Ferromanganese rock varnish in north Norway: A subglacial origin

A thin, dark brown rock varnish is described from ice-smoothed bedrock on the forefield of a glacier in North Norway. It occurs only in narrow strips (ca 100 mm or less wide) which run roughly parallel to the ice front and along the top edges of small treads of a series of bedrock steps. The varnish is hard, thin (< 10 μm) and consists of an iron/manganese deposit, greatly enriched in these elements compared with the composition of the underlying gabbroic bedrock. It is suggested that the varnish formation is due to localized changes in Eh/pH conditions in subglacial regelation ice and meltwater at the top of the bedrock steps. These changes may be due to CO₂ and/or O₂ degassing from water held at higher pressures under the ice than in cavities downstream where the ice is decoupled from the bedrock. Glacier retreat rates indicate that the varnish has remained exposed subaerially at the surface for about twenty years, and its restricted occurrence suggests that it is not of biological origin but rather is essentially authigenic. Possible subglacial origins for associated iron and silica precipitates are also suggested.     

Structure,morphology and water flux of a subglacial drainage system,Midtdalsbreen, Norway

Digital elevation models of the surface and bed of Midtdalsbreen, Norway are used to calculate subglacial hydraulic potential and infer drainage system structure for a series of subglacial water pressure assumptions ranging from atmospheric to ice overburden. A distributed degree‐day model is used to calculate the spatial distribution of melt on the glacier surface throughout a typical summer, which is accumulated along the various drainage system structures to calculate water fluxes beneath the glacier and exiting the portals for the different water pressure assumptions. In addition, 78 dye‐tracing tests were performed from 33 injection sites and numerous measurements of water discharge were made on the main proglacial streams over several summer melt seasons. Comparison of the calculated drainage system structures and water fluxes with dye tracing results and measured proglacial stream discharges suggests that the temporally and spatially averaged steady‐state water pressures beneath the glacier are ~70% of ice overburden. Analysis of the dye return curves, together with the calculated subglacial water fluxes shows that the main drainage network on the eastern half of the glacier consists of a hydraulically efficient system of broad, low channels (average width/height ratio ≈ 75). The smaller drainage network on the west consists of a hydraulically inefficient distributed system, dominated by channels that are exceptionally broad and very low (average width/height ratio ≈ 350). The even smaller central drainage network also consists of a hydraulically inefficient distributed system, dominated by channels that are very broad and exceptionally low (average width/height ratio ≈ 450). The channels beneath the western and central glacier must be so broad and low that they can essentially be thought of as a linked cavity system. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Basal sediment evacuation by subglacial meltwater: suspended sediment transport from Haut Glacier d'Arolla,Switzerland

Proglacial suspended sediment transport was monitored at Haut Glacier d'Arolla, Switzerland, during the 1998 melt season to investigate the mechanisms of basal sediment evacuation by subglacial meltwater. Sub‐seasonal changes in relationships between suspended sediment transport and discharge demonstrate that the structure and hydraulics of the subglacial drainage system critically influenced how basal sediment was accessed and entrained. Under hydraulically inefficient subglacial drainage at the start of the melt season, sediment availability was generally high but sediment transport increased relatively slowly with discharge. Later in the melt season, sediment transport increased more rapidly with discharge as subglacial meltwater became confined to a spatially limited network of channels following removal of the seasonal snowpack from the ablation area. Flow capacity is inferred to have increased more rapidly with discharge within subglacial channels because rapid changes in discharge during highly peaked diurnal runoff cycles are likely to have been accommodated largely by changes in flow velocity. Basal sediment availability declined during channelization but increased throughout the remainder of the monitored period, resulting in very efficient basal sediment evacuation over the peak of the melt season. Increased basal sediment availability during the summer appears to have been linked to high diurnal water pressure variation within subglacial channels inferred from the strong increase in flow velocity with discharge. Basal sediment availability therefore appears likely to have been increased by (1) enhanced local ice‐bed separation leading to extra‐channel flow excursions and[sol ]or (2) the deformation of basal sediment towards low‐pressure channels due to a strong diurnally reversing hydraulic gradient between channels and areas of hydraulically less‐efficient drainage. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Glacier changes and their impacts on the discharge in the past half-century in Tekes watershed,Central Asia

The glacier is an important and stable water supply in Central Asia. Monitoring the change of glacier and understanding the impacts of glacier change on river discharge are critical to predict the downstream water availability change in future. Glacier changes were discussed and their impacts on river discharge were evaluated by hydrological modeling with a distributed hydrological model SWAT under two land use and land cover scenarios (1970 and 2007) in Tekes watershed, the most important source of water discharge to the Ili River. Compared to the glacier area of 1511 km² in 1970s it decreased by 332 km² in 2007, which resulted in the contribution the discharge from precipitation in the glacier area to the average annual discharge of the watershed changing from 9.8% in the period 1966–1975 to 7.8% in the period 2000–2008. In the month scale, with the decrease of glacier area, the distribution of the contribution of monthly discharge from precipitation in the glacier area to the total of the watershed changed from bimodal pattern to unimodal pattern. By linking a hydrological model to remote sensing image analysis and Chinese glacier inventories to determine glacier area change our approach in quantifying the impacts of glacier changes on hydrology at different scales, will provide quantitative information for stakeholders in making decisions for water resource management.     

Meltwater storage and delaying characteristics of Gangotri Glacier (Indian Himalayas) during ablation season

Himalayan basins have considerable snow‐ and glacier‐covered areas, which are an important source of water, particularly during summer season. In the Himalayan region, in general, the glacier melt season is considered to be from May to October. Changes in hydrological characteristics of the runoff over the melt season can be understood by studying the variation in time to peak and time lag between melt generation and its emergence as runoff. In the present study, the runoff‐delaying characteristics of Gangotri Glacier, one of the largest glaciers in the Indian Himalayas, have been studied. For this purpose, hourly discharge and temperature data were collected near the snout of the glacier (4000 m) for three ablation seasons (2004–2006). The diurnal variations in discharge and temperature provided useful information on water storage and runoff characteristics of the glacier. In the early stages of the ablation period, poor drainage network and stronger storage characteristics of the glaciers due to the presence of seasonal snow cover resulted in a much delayed response of melt water, providing a higher time lag and time to peak as compared to the peak melt season. A comparison of runoff‐delaying parameters with the discharge ratio clearly indicated that changes in time lag and time to peak are inversely correlated with variations in discharge. Impact of such meltwater storage and delaying characteristics of glaciers on hydropower projects being planned/developed on glacier‐fed streams in India has been discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hydrology and dynamics of a polythermal (mostly cold) High Arctic glacier

To improve our understanding of the interactions between hydrology and dynamics in mostly cold glaciers (in which water flow is limited by thermal regime), we analyse short‐term (every two days) variations in glacier flow in the ablation zone of polythermal John Evans Glacier, High Arctic Canada. We monitor the spatial and temporal propagation of high‐velocity events, and examine their impacts upon supraglacial drainage processes and evolving subglacial drainage system structure. Each year, in response to the rapid establishment of supraglacial–subglacial drainage connections in the mid‐ablation zone, a ‘spring event’ of high horizontal surface velocities and high residual vertical motion propagates downglacier over two to four days from the mid‐ablation zone to the terminus. Subsequently, horizontal velocities fall relative to the spring event but remain higher than over winter, reflecting channelization of subglacial drainage but continued supraglacial meltwater forcing. Further transient high‐velocity events occur later in each melt season in response to melt‐induced rising supraglacial meltwater inputs to the glacier bed, but the dynamic response of the glacier contrasts with that recorded during the spring event, with the degree of spatial propagation a function of the degree to which the subglacial drainage system has become channelized. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

HYDROCHEMISTRY AS AN INDICATOR OF SUBGLACIAL DRAINAGE SYSTEM STRUCTURE: A COMPARISON OF ALPINE AND SUB-POLAR ENVIRONMENTS

The anion compositions (SO²₄, HCO⁻₃ and Cl⁻) of runoff from the Haut Glacier d'Arolla, Switzerland and Austre Brøggerbreen, Svalbard are compared to assess whether or not variations in water chemistry with discharge are consistent with current understanding of the subglacial drainage structure of warm- and polythermal-based glaciers. These glacial catchments have very different bedrocks and the subglacial drainage structures are also believed to be different, yet the range of anion concentrations show considerable overlap for SO²⁻₄ and HCO⁻₃. Concentrations of Cl⁻ are higher at Austre Brøggerbreen because of the maritime location of the glacier. Correcting SO²⁻₄ for the snowpack component reveals that the variation in non-snowpack SO²⁻₄ with discharge and with HCO⁻₃ is similar to that observed at the Haut Glacier d'Arolla. Hence, if we assume that the provenance of the non-snowpack SO²⁻₄ is the same in both glacial drainage systems, a distributed drainage system also contributes to runoff at Austre Brøggerbreen. We have no independent means of testing the assumption at present. The lower concentrations of non-snowpack SO²⁻₄ at Austre Brøggerbreen may suggest that a smaller proportion of runoff originates from a distributed drainage system than at the Haut Glacier d'Arolla.     

Seasonal transition of hydrological processes in a slow‐moving landslide in a snowy region

A comprehensive understanding of seasonal hydrological dynamics is required to describe the influence of pore‐water pressure on the stability of landslides in snowy regions. This study reports on the results of continuous meteorological and hydrological observations over 2 years on a landslide body comprising Neogene sedimentary rocks in northern Japan, where a thick (3–5 m) seasonal snowpack covers the land surface. Monitoring of the volumetric water content in shallow unsaturated zones (<0.8 m depth) and pore‐water pressure in saturated bedrock at depths of 2.0 and 5.2 m revealed clear seasonality in hydrological responses to rainfall and meltwater supply. During snow‐free periods, both the shallow soil moisture and deep pore‐water pressure responded rapidly to intense rainwater infiltration. In contrast, during snowmelt, the deep pore pressure fluctuated in accordance with the daily cycle of meltwater input, without notable changes in shallow moisture conditions. During occasional foehn events that cause intense snow melting in midwinter, meltwater flows preferentially through the layered snowpack, converging to produce a localized water supply at the ground surface. This episodically triggers a significant rise in pore‐water pressure. The seasonal differences in hydrological responses were characterized by a set of newly proposed indices for the magnitude and quickness of increases in the pressure head near the sliding surface. Under snow‐covered conditions, the magnitude of the pressure increase tends to be suppressed, probably owing to a reduction in infiltration caused by a seasonal decrease in the permeability of surface soils, and effective pore‐water drainage through the highly conductive colluvial layer. Deep groundwater flow within bedrock remained in a steady upwelling state, enhanced by increasing moisture in shallow soils under snow cover, reflecting the convergence of subsurface water from surrounding hillslopes.