Accurate methods are needed to measure changing soil water content from meter to kilometer scales. Laboratory results demonstrate the feasibility of the heat pulse method implemented with fiber optic temperature sensing to obtain accurate distributed measurements of soil water content. A fiber optic cable with an electrically conductive armoring was...
Raman spectra distributed temperature sensing (DTS) by fiber-optic cables has
recently shown considerable promise for the measuring and monitoring of surface and
near-surface hydrologic processes such as groundwater–surface water interaction,
borehole circulation, snow hydrology, soil moisture studies, and land surface energy
exchanges. DTS systems uniquely provide the opportunity to monitor...
During summer 2007, perennial sea ice in the Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean, experienced an unprecedented amount of basal melt. It has previously been shown that this basal melt was linked to an increase in open-water fraction, increasing absorption of solar radiation into the ocean. GPS ice drifters, deployed around the...
We present a high-resolution Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mascon solution for Gulf of Alaska (GOA) glaciers and compare this with in situ glaciological, climate and other remote-sensing observations. Our GRACE solution yields a GOA glacier mass balance of -65 ± 11 Gta⁻¹ for the period December 2003 to...
Central to an understanding of evolution in sea-ice characteristics in response to climate change is an understanding of sea-ice dynamics. In this study, we investigate regional differences in ice dynamics in the Beaufort Sea and High Arctic using high-frequency ice buoy (beacon) data deployed during the SEDNA and IPY-CFL field...
While the impacts of long-term climate change trends on glacier hydrology have received much attention, little has been done to quantify direct glacier runoff contributions to streamflow. This paper presents an approach for determining glacier runoff contributions to streamflow and estimating the effects of increased temperature and decreased glacier area...
Changes in glacier length reflect the integrated response to local fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, but when do such changes indicate forced climate change, and when do they indicate natural variability? In this study, we simulate the past ~1000 years of glacier length variability across the globe using the 3-stage...
The movement of air in natural porous media is complex and challenging to measure. Yet gas transport has important implications, for instance, for the evolution of the seasonal snow cover and for water vapor transport in soil. A novel in situ multi-sensor measurement system providing high-resolution observation of gas transport...
The glaciated coastal mountain watersheds that drain into the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) provide a model laboratory to explore the challenges of hydrological modeling and study the impact of climate and glacier cover change on regional hydrology. The region is data-sparse and contains a complex assemblage of topography and land...
During the last glacial period atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature in Antarctica varied in a similar fashion on millennial time scales, but previous work indicates that these changes were gradual. In a detailed analysis of one event we now find that approximately half of the CO₂ increase that occurred during...