Conditions of the alimentation and the variability of glaciers of the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago from observations of 2014–2015

Abstract

Glaciological investigations on the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago were resumed in 2013 when a new research station «Ice base Cape Baranova» had been organized by Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in the North-West of the Island Bolshevik. In 2014–2015, the glaciological polygon named after Leonid Govorukha was established on glaciers Mushketov and Semenov-Tyan-Shanskiy. Two years of observations on the glaciers allowed us to estimate the mass balance of the Mushketov Glacier, which was positive in the 2013–2015. By the end of the melting periods, a superimposed ice was formed on the glacier with thickness of 4 cm in 2014 and 17 cm in 2015, on the average. A snow-firn mass with its vertical thickness exceeding 3 m had been found on the upper part of the Semenov-Tyan-Shansky Glacier. Based on analyses of summer air temperatures and precipitation at the meteorological station «The Golomyanny Island», we assumed that in 2013–2015 the mass balance was also positive on the other glaciers of the archipelago, located to the North of the studied glaciers on the Island of Bolshevik. Data of remote sensing of the catastrophic advancing of the outlet glacier from the Vavilov Ice Cap, obtained in 2013–2016, testify that for much longer period, i.e. during 25 years, conditions for the ice mass accumulation were favorable on the southern and eastern slopes of the Vavilov Ice Cap.