Arctic glaciers respond quickly to climatic conditions, which is why they play a special role as climate warming indicators. Studying them in the long term is the key to understanding future global environmental changes.
Dlaczego badamy polarne regiony Ziemi? Odpowiedź jest taka sama jak na typowe pytanie, dlaczego alpinista chodzi w góry: „Bo one są!”. A na dodatek okolice biegunów są bardzo ważne dla całej planety. Także dla naszego kraju.
The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.
Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.
Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.
Dlaczego badamy polarne regiony Ziemi? Odpowiedź jest taka sama jak na typowe pytanie, dlaczego alpinista chodzi w góry: „Bo one są!”. A na dodatek okolice biegunów są bardzo ważne dla całej planety. Także dla naszego kraju.
The purpose of this study is to describe the current state of tidewater glaciers in Svalbard as an extension of the inventory of Hagen et al. (1993). The ice masses of Svalbard cover an area of ca 36 600 km2 and more than 60% of the glaciated areas are glaciers which terminate in the sea at calving ice-cliffs. Recent data on the geometry of glacier tongues, their flow velocities and front position changes have been extracted from ASTER images acquired from 2000-2006 using automated methods of satellite image analysis. Analyses have shown that 163 Svalbard glaciers are of tidewater type (having contact with the ocean) and the total length of their calving ice-cliffs is 860 km . When compared with the previous inventory, 14 glaciers retreated from the ocean to the land over a 30-40 year period. Eleven formerly land-based glaciers now terminate in the sea. A new method of assessing the dynamic state of glaciers, based on patterns of frontal crevassing, has been developed. Tidewater glacier termini are divided into four groups on the basis of differences in crevasse patterns and flow velocity: (1) very slow or stagnant glaciers, (2) slow-flowing glaciers, (3) fast-flowing glaciers, (4) surging glaciers (in the active phase) and fast ice streams. This classification has enabled us to estimate total calving flux from Svalbard glaciers with an accuracy appreciably higher than that of previous attempts. Mass loss due to calving from the whole archipelago (excluding Kvitřya) is estimated to be 5.0-8.4 km3 yr-1 (water equivalent - w.e.), with a mean value 6.75 ± 1.7 km3 yr-1 (w.e.). Thus, ablation due to calving contributes as much as 17-25% (with a mean value 21%) to the overall mass loss from Svalbard glaciers. By implication, the contribution of Svalbard iceberg flux to sea-level rise amounts to ca 0.02 mm yr-1. Also calving flux in the Arctic has been considered and the highest annual specific mass balance attributable to iceberg calving has been found for Svalbard.
We describe the spatial variability of snow accumulation on three selected glaciers in Spitsbergen (Hansbreen, Werenskioldbreen and Aavatsmarkbreen) in the winter seasons of 1988/89, 1998/99 and 2001/2002 respectively. The distribution of snow cover is determined by the interrelationships between the direction of the glacier axes and the dominant easterly winds. The snow distribution is regular on the glaciers located E-W, but is more complicated on the glaciers located meridionally. The western part of glaciers is more predisposed to the snow accumulation than the eastern. This is due to snowdrift intensity. Statistical relationships between snow accumulation, deviation of accumulation from the mean values and accumulation variability related to topographic parameters such as: altitude, slope inclination, aspect, slope curvature and distance from the edge of the glacier have been determined. The only significant relations occured between snow accumulation and altitude (r = 0.64-0.91).