scholarly journals Monitoring long-term changes of glacial seismic activity with continuous seismological observations: a case study from Spitsbergen

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Gajek ◽  
J. Trojanowski ◽  
M. Malinowski

Abstract. Changes in the global temperature balance have proved to have a major impact on the cryosphere and therefore retreating glaciers are the symbol of the warming climate. Long-term measurements of geophysical parameters provide the insight into the dynamics of those processes over many years. Here we explore the possibility of using data recorded by permanent seismological stations to monitor glacial seismic activity. Our study focuses on year-to-year changes in seismicity of the Hansbreen glacier (southern Spitsbergen). We have processed 7-year-long continuous seismological data recorded by a broadband station located in the fjord of Hornsund, obtaining seismicity distribution between 2008 and 2014. To distinguish between glacier- and non-glacier-origin events with the data from only one seismic station in the area, we developed a new fuzzy logic algorithm based on the seismic signal frequency and the energy flow analysis. Our research has revealed that the number of detected glacier-origin events over the last two years has doubled. We also observed that the annual events distribution correlates well with the temperature and precipitation data. In order to further support our observations, we have analysed 5-year-long seismological data recorded by a broadband station located in Ny-Ålesund (western Spitsbergen). Distribution of glacier-origin tremors detected in the vicinity of the Kronebreen glacier shows a steady increase from year to year, however not as significant as for the Hornsund dataset.

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (240) ◽  
pp. 581-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. GAJEK ◽  
J. TROJANOWSKI ◽  
M. MALINOWSKI

ABSTRACTRetreating glaciers are a consequence of a warming climate. Thus, numerous monitoring campaigns are being carried out to increase understanding of this on-going process. One phenomenon related to dynamic glacial changes is glacier-induced seismicity; however, weak seismic events are difficult to record due to the sparse seismological network in arctic areas. We have developed an automatic procedure capable of detecting glacier-induced seismic events using records from a single permanent seismological station. To distinguish between glacial and non-glacial signals, we developed a fuzzy logic algorithm based on the signal frequency and energy flow analysis. We studied the long-term changes in glacier-induced seismicity in Hornsund (southern Spitsbergen) and in Kongsfjorden (western Spitsbergen). We found that the number of detected glacial-origin events in the Hornsund dataset over the years 2013-14 has doubled. In the Kongsfjorden dataset, we observed a steady increase in the number of glacier-induced events with each year. We also observed that the seasonal event distribution correlates best with 1 month lagged temperatures, and that extreme rain events can intensify seismic emissions. Our study demonstrates the possibility of using long-term seismological observations from a single permanent station to automatically monitor the dynamic activity of nearby glaciers and retrieve its characteristic features.


Author(s):  
José G. Centeno

Abstract The steady increase in linguistic and cultural diversity in the country, including the number of bilingual speakers, has been predicted to continue. Minorities are expected to be the majority by 2042. Strokes, the third leading cause of death and the leading cause of long-term disability in the U.S., are quite prevalent in racial and ethnic minorities, so population estimates underscore the imperative need to develop valid clinical procedures to serve the predicted increase in linguistically and culturally diverse bilingual adults with aphasia in post-stroke rehabilitation. Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon that interconnects culture, cognition, and language; thus, as aphasia is a social phenomenon, treatment of bilingual aphasic persons would benefit from conceptual frameworks that exploit the culture-cognition-language interaction in ways that maximize both linguistic and communicative improvement leading to social re-adaptation. This paper discusses a multidisciplinary evidence-based approach to develop ecologically-valid treatment strategies for bilingual aphasic individuals. Content aims to spark practitioners' interest to explore conceptually broad intervention strategies beyond strictly linguistic domains that would facilitate linguistic gains, communicative interactions, and social functioning. This paper largely emphasizes Spanish-English individuals in the United States. Practitioners, however, are advised to adapt the proposed principles to the unique backgrounds of other bilingual aphasic clients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Atanu Bhattacharya ◽  
Tobias Bolch ◽  
Kriti Mukherjee ◽  
Owen King ◽  
Brian Menounos ◽  
...  

AbstractKnowledge about the long-term response of High Mountain Asian glaciers to climatic variations is paramount because of their important role in sustaining Asian river flow. Here, a satellite-based time series of glacier mass balance for seven climatically different regions across High Mountain Asia since the 1960s shows that glacier mass loss rates have persistently increased at most sites. Regional glacier mass budgets ranged from −0.40 ± 0.07 m w.e.a−1 in Central and Northern Tien Shan to −0.06 ± 0.07 m w.e.a−1 in Eastern Pamir, with considerable temporal and spatial variability. Highest rates of mass loss occurred in Central Himalaya and Northern Tien Shan after 2015 and even in regions where glaciers were previously in balance with climate, such as Eastern Pamir, mass losses prevailed in recent years. An increase in summer temperature explains the long-term trend in mass loss and now appears to drive mass loss even in regions formerly sensitive to both temperature and precipitation.


Geosciences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Giancarlo Molli ◽  
Isabelle Manighetti ◽  
Rick Bennett ◽  
Jacques Malavieille ◽  
Enrico Serpelloni ◽  
...  

Based on the review of the available stratigraphic, tectonic, morphological, geodetic, and seismological data, along with new structural observations, we present a reappraisal of the potential seismogenic faults and fault systems in the inner northwest Apennines, Italy, which was the site, one century ago, of the devastating Mw ~6.5, 1920 Fivizzano earthquake. Our updated fault catalog provides the fault locations, as well as the description of their architecture, large-scale segmentation, cumulative displacements, evidence for recent to present activity, and long-term slip rates. Our work documents that a dense network of active faults, and thus potential earthquake fault sources, exists in the region. We discuss the seismogenic potential of these faults, and propose a general tectonic scenario that might account for their development.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloé M. Marcilly ◽  
Trond H. Torsvik ◽  
Mathew Domeier ◽  
Dana L. Royer

<p>CO<sub>2</sub> is the most important greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere and has fluctuated considerably over geological time. However, proxies for past CO<sub>2 </sub>concentrations have large uncertainties and are mostly limited to Devonian and younger times. Consequently, CO<sub>2</sub> modelling plays a key role in reconstructing past climate fluctuations. Facing the limitations with the current CO<sub>2</sub> models, we aim to refine two important forcings for CO<sub>2</sub> levels over the Phanerozoic, namely carbon degassing and silicate weathering.</p><p>Silicate weathering and carbonate deposition is widely recognized as a primary sink of carbon on geological timescales and is largely influenced by changes in climate, which in turn is linked to changes in paleogeography. The role of paleogeography on silicate weathering fluxes has been the focus of several studies in recent years. Their aims were mostly to constrain climatic parameters such as temperature and precipitation affecting weathering rates through time. However, constraining the availability of exposed land is crucial in assessing the theoretical amount of weathering on geological time scales. Associated with changes in climatic zones, the fluctuation of sea-level is critical for defining the amount of land exposed to weathering. The current reconstructions used in<sub></sub>models tend to overestimate the amount of exposed land to weathering at periods with high sea levels. Through the construction of continental flooding maps, we constrain the effective land area undergoing silicate weathering for the past 520 million years. Our maps not only reflect sea-level fluctuations but also contain climate-sensitive indicators such as coal (since the Early Devonian) and evaporites to evaluate climate gradients and potential weatherablity through time. This is particularly important after the Pangea supercontinent formed but also for some time after its break-up.</p><p>Whilst silicate weathering is an important CO<sub>2</sub> sink, volcanic carbon degassing is a major source but one of the least constrained climate forcing parameters. There is no clear consensus on the history of degassing through geological time as there are no direct proxies for reconstructing carbon degassing, but various proxy methods have been postulated. We propose new estimates of plate tectonic degassing for the Phanerozoic using both subduction flux from full-plate models and zircon age distribution from arcs (arc-activity) as proxies.</p><p>The effect of revised modelling parameters for weathering and degassing was tested in the well-known long-term models GEOCARBSULF and COPSE. They revealed the high influence of degassing on CO<sub>2</sub> levels using those models, highlighting the need for enhanced research in this direction. The use of arc-activity as a proxy for carbon degassing leads to interesting responses in the Mesozoic and brings model estimates closer to CO<sub>2 </sub> proxy values. However, from simulations using simultaneously the revised input parameters (i.e weathering and degassing) large model-proxy discrepancies remain and notably for the Triassic and Jurassic.</p><p> </p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 8-12
Author(s):  
E. E. Razumov ◽  
◽  
S. M. Prostov ◽  
G. D. Rukavishnikov ◽  
S. N. Mulev ◽  
...  

The main directions of development of seismic monitoring systems in underground mineral mining are analyzed. The expediency of passive registration of natural seismic activity is proved, which provides prediction of geodynamic phenomena by locating the centers of seismic events and determining their energy level. The methods of active seismic monitoring (seismic tomography, cross-borehole survey, recording of seismic signal from a rock-breaking tool) are technically more difficult to implement. The promising methods for processing seismic information are geolocation, neural network technology, cluster analysis, and integration with numerical stress–strain analysis of and changes in acoustic properties of rock mass. The configuration of the platform developed at VNIMI and the GITS seismic monitoring system, which includes from 6 to 12 three-component seismic sensors installed permanently in wells or on pedestals, is described. The detailed layouts of seismic sensors at recording points and in gateways in extraction panels are presented. The main technical characteristics of GITS are given: the signal frequency range is 0.1–1000 Hz, the minimum recorded signal level is 0.01 mV. The main test data of GITS in Komsomolskaya mine of Vorkutaugol are described: the average annual levels of seismic activity and energy of seismic events are found to be relatively stable; the relationship between seismic event with the maximum total energy and the alternating increment in the relative criterion is defined, and the local increase in the average energy of a single event in time from the moment the main roof caving is identified. Aimed to substantiate the regional and local prediction criteria of probability of geodynamic events caused by confining pressure, VNIMI implements integrated research in mines in different regions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 41-48
Author(s):  
Halina A. Kamyshenka

The results of a statistical assessment of the influence of changing weather and climatic conditions of the territory of Belarus on the productivity of the main winter cereal crops are presented in order to build computational models of productivity. The calculations were made with respect to the climatic component as a predictor, taking into account the deviations of air temperature and precipitation from the long-term climatic norm of months that have the most significant effect on the yield of the studied crops. For winter rye and wheat, adequate models of yield variability have been built. The research results are relevant for solving forecasting problems.


2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (217) ◽  
pp. 992-1006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Farinotti

AbstractStudies addressing the response of glaciers to climate change have so far analyzed the effect of long-term trends in a particular set of meteorological variables only, implicitly assuming an unaltered climatic variability. Here a framework for distinguishing between year-to-year, month-to-month and day-to-day variability is proposed. Synthetically generated temperature and precipitation time series following the same long-term trend but with altered variability are then used to force an ice-dynamics model set up for Rhonegletscher, Swiss Alps. In the case of temperature, variations in the day-to-day variability are shown to have a larger effect than changes at the yearly scale, while in the case of precipitation, variability changes are assessed as having negligible impact. A first set of scenarios is used to show that compared to reference, doubling the temperature variability can reduce glacier ice volume by up to 64% within half a decade. A second set derived from the results of the European ENSEMBLES project, however, shows that such changes are expected to remain below 8% even for extreme scenarios. Although the latter results relativize the importance of the effect in the near future, the analyses indicate that at least caution is required when assuming ‘unchanged variability’.


Quaternary ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Adolfo F. Gil ◽  
Ricardo Villalba ◽  
Fernando R. Franchetti ◽  
Clara Otaola ◽  
Cinthia C. Abbona ◽  
...  

In this paper we explore how changes in human strategies are differentially modulated by climate in a border area between hunter-gatherers and farmers. We analyze multiple proxies: radiocarbon summed probability distributions (SPDs), stable C and N isotopes, and zooarchaeological data from northwestern Patagonia. Based on these proxies, we discuss aspects of human population, subsistence, and dietary dynamics in relation to long-term climatic trends marked by variation in the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). Our results indicate that the farming frontier in northwestern Patagonia was dynamic in both time and space. We show how changes in temperature and precipitation over the last 1000 years cal BP have influenced the use of domestic plants and the hunting of highest-ranked wild animals, whereas no significant changes in human population size occurred. During the SAM positive phase between 900 and 550 years cal BP, warmer and drier summers are associated with an increase in C4 resource consumption (maize). After 550 years cal BP, when the SAM changes to the negative phase, wetter and cooler summer conditions are related to a change in diet focused on wild resources, especially meat. Over the past 1000 years, there was a non-significant change in the population based on the SPD.


1995 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 377-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
B.B. Fitzharris ◽  
C.E. Garr

There are no systematic measurements of seasonal snow in the Southern Alps, New Zealand, so little information is available as to its past variability. To rectify this, a conceptual model is developed that calculates seasonal snow deposition, ablation and accumulation. The model is based on daily temperature and precipitation data from long-established climate stations about the Southern Alps. Output is given as daily specific net balance of snow at five elevation bands from 1000 to 2200 m and as total water stored as seasonal snow over several major river catchments. Model output is in general agreement when tested against the few historical observations of snow and is tuned to the long-term water balance. A chronology of seasonal snow is reconstructed from 1931 to 1993. Area-averaged annual maxima average 366 mm. They show no trend, but large inter-annual variability from less than 200 to over 650 mm w.e. Seasonal snow can peak at any time between September and January.


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