Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Glaciology
Beyond equilibrium: Multi-method mass-balance monitoring at the vanishing Alpine glacier Stubacher Sonnblickkees, Austria
Published: 2026-07-07
Subjects: Glaciology
Glaciers in the Eastern Alps are approaching extinction, raising the question of how reliably established mass-balance monitoring methods perform on glaciers in severe disequilibrium. We present a multi-year (2018–2025) intercomparison of three independent methods – direct glaciological, semi-direct (accumulation-area-ratio based) and UAV-geodetic – at Stubacher Sonnblickkees (SSK), Austria, [...]
Measurement and Tracking of Blowing and Falling Snow Particles Using an Automotive 1550 nm LiDAR
Published: 2026-06-26
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Glaciology, Hydrology, Meteorology
The prevalence and affordability of fast-scanning commercially available LiDARs are increasing due to the rapid expansion of the autonomous vehicle industry. These LiDAR units can provide >1 Hz measurements of millions of laser reflections at ranges of hundreds of meters with high precision. In this study we investigate the often overlooked 1550 nm wavelength LiDAR for measurements of airborne [...]
Glacier thickness, thermal regime, and subjective uncertainty from ground-penetrating radar of 25 Svalbard glaciers
Published: 2026-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Glacier thickness and thermal regime control glacier dynamics and long-term evolution, but observations are sparse at regional scales. Both can be measured using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), which requires manual or automated interpretation. Interpretation often depends on more than signal waveform analysis alone, and this subjectivity has not been thoroughly quantified before. We present 699 [...]
Global Gravitational-Resonant Waves in the Arctic Basin: Visualizing Hidden Ocean Macrodynamics using 22-Year Passive Microwave Radiometry Data
Published: 2026-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The dynamics of the Arctic Ocean's sea ice cover are traditionally viewed through the lens of atmospheric forcing, ocean currents, and thermodynamic processes. In this paper, we propose a fundamentally new paradigm: the sea ice cover acts not as an elastic membrane transmitting mechanical stress, but as a passive two-dimensional indicator (analogous to Chladni figures) that visualizes a [...]
Modification of Antarctic geothermal heat flux by groundwater flow
Published: 2026-06-13
Subjects: Fluid Dynamics, Glaciology
The geothermal heat flux to the bed of the ice in Antarctica is important for ice flow and basal meltwater production, but is also highly uncertain. In particular, it is thought that groundwater flow in sedimentary basins could modify the geothermal heat flux to the ice bed by advecting heat, but this process is unaccounted for in current models. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model to [...]
Modelling the Evolution of Elliptical Röthlisberger Channels
Published: 2026-06-12
Subjects: Fluid Dynamics, Glaciology, Other Mathematics
Subglacial water flow is critical to basal sliding and ice dynamics. Modelling the coupled evolution of subglacial drainage and ice flow remains challenging, however. This study investigates the evolution of the basal ice-water interface by analysing heat and fluid flow in idealised englacial channels. We extend the classical Röthlisberger model for circular channels to elliptical channel [...]
Novel Data-driven High-Frequency Mass Change Models from GRACE orbit residuals
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Glaciology, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a fully data-driven framework for transforming residual K-band range-rate (KBRR) data from GRACE into 5-day mass change models expressed in Equivalent Water Height (EWH). The approach first derives residual range and Line-of-Sight Gravity Differences (LGDs) from monthly post-fit residual range-rates and combines them with 5-day post-fit residuals. A hybrid formulation, merging LGD- and [...]
EARLY PLIOCENE DRAWDOWN AND EXPANSION OF THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA ICE SHEET IN MARGUERITE BAY
Published: 2026-06-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Glaciology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet (APIS) is situated in a rapidly and persistently warming region of Antarctica and its behavior under warmer conditions projected for Earth’s future remains poorly constrained. Interpretations of stratigraphic records of ice-sheet change from periods of warmth in Earth’s past are essential in providing boundary conditions for estimates of future ice loss and its [...]
A benchmark deep learning dataset for the classification of supraglacial lake drainage mechanism across the central-west Greenland Ice Sheet
Published: 2026-05-29
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Supraglacial lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain through physically distinct pathways: hydrofracture, moulins, lateral stream routing, and crevasse-fields. Each drainage mechanism carries unique implications for ice sheet dynamics. Existing automated classifications reduce each lake's drainage behavior to a time-series of scalar values representing the observed water surface-area and classify [...]
Trapped Lee-Wave Resonance Determines Antarctic Megadune Wavelength
Published: 2026-05-23
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Categorical Data Analysis, Design of Experiments and Sample Surveys, Earth Sciences, Fluid Dynamics, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Mineral Physics, Other Earth Sciences, Paleontology, Physics, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Glaciology, Planetary Hydrology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences, Planetary Sedimentology, Sedimentology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Stratigraphy
Snow megadunes cover 5×105 km2 of the East Antarctic plateau, biasing surface mass balance estimates and overprinting ice-core signals—yet their 2–5 km wavelength has lacked a quantitative selection mechanism for two decades. We first falsify the standard formula λ∗ = 2πU0/N through a calibration-free spatial test: eight REMA 2 m tiles across two independent locations at 81.5–82.0°S show no [...]
Snow water equivalent estimates from airborne radar in the St. Elias Mountains
Published: 2026-05-20
Subjects: Glaciology
Quantifying the input mass from snow accumulation on rapidly changing glaciers is critical to establishing baseline states and predicting responses to climate change. Some of the largest glaciers in the world are located in the St. Elias Mountains in Southeast Alaska and Southwest Yukon; however, the input mass to these glaciers is poorly constrained. Here we used airborne radar sounding combined [...]
CryoSentinel: A Multimodal Foundation-Model Segmenter for Glacial Lakes in High Mountain Asia from Sentinel-1 SAR, Sentinel-2 Optical, and Copernicus DEM Imagery
Published: 2026-05-16
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Monitoring, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology
Glacial-lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are the dominant climate-driven hazard in High Mountain Asia, and reliable lake-extent segmentation is the prerequisite for every downstream early-warning workflow. We present CryoSentinel, a multimodal foundation-model semantic segmenter built on the IBM/ESA TerraMind 1.0 Large encoder (1.1 B parameters) with a UperNet decoder, fine-tuned on 5,614 [...]
TUD-L3-EWH_UNC-GRACE: A Global Level‑3 GRACE(-FO) EWH Uncertainty Product
Published: 2026-05-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Hydrology, Other Earth Sciences
We present TUD-L3-EWH\_UNC-GRACE, a globally gridded Level-3 GRACE(-FO) equivalent water height (EWH) data product providing an extensive characterisation of uncertainty for direct use in Earth system research. Unlike conventional approaches that either require propagation of full normal matrices or rely on empirical assumptions regarding temporal and spatial correlations, the dataset combines [...]
Sustained Decline of Annual Snow Cover Area in the Sikkim Himalaya (1987–2025): Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing on Google Earth Engine, Machine Learning, and Projections to 2100
Published: 2026-05-03
Subjects: Climate, Glaciology, Hydrology, Planetary Glaciology, Planetary Hydrology, Remote Sensing
Snow cover is a critical component of the Himalayan cryosphere, providing freshwater to millions of people across South Asia and regulating regional climate through albedo feedbacks. Sikkim, a small but ecologically significant state in the Eastern Himalaya, has experienced accelerating glacial retreat and mounting hydrological stress in recent decades. This study presents a comprehensive, [...]
Long-term future Greenland ice loss determined by peak global warming
Published: 2026-04-29
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Climate, Glaciology
The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is known to be very sensitive to climate change, and persistent global warming only slightly higher than today could be enough to completely melt it. However, the implications of a temporary crossing of this temperature threshold for future GrIS mass loss remain unknown. Here we present simulations of the next 10,000 years under different future anthropogenic [...]