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Seasonal and interannual variations in ice melange and its impact on terminus stability, Jakobshavn Isbræ, GreenlandWe used satellite-derived surface temperatures and time-lapse photography to infer temporal variations in the proglacial ice melange at Jakobshavn Isbræ, a large and rapidly retreating outlet glacier in Greenland. Freezing of the melange-covered fjord surface during winter is indicated by a decrease in fjord surface temperatures and is associated with (1) a decrease in ice melange mobility and (2) a drastic reduction in iceberg production. Vigorous calving resumes in spring, typically abruptly, following the steady up-fjord retreat of the sea-ice/ice-melange margin. An analysis of pixel displacement from time-lapse imagery demonstrates that melange motion increases prior to calving and subsequently decreases following several events. We find that secular changes in ice melange extent, character and persistence can influence iceberg calving, and therefore glacier dynamics over daily-to-monthly timescales, which, if sustained, will influence the mass balance of an ice sheet.
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Dynamic jamming of iceberg-choked fjordsWe investigate the dynamics of ice mélange by analyzing rapid motion recorded by a time-lapse camera and terrestrial radar during several calving events that occurred at Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland. During calving events (1) the kinetic energy of the ice mélange is 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the total energy released during the events, (2) a jamming front propagates through the ice mélange at a rate that is an order of magnitude faster than the motion of individual icebergs, (3) the ice mélange undergoes initial compaction followed by slow relaxation and extension, and (4) motion of the ice mélange gradually decays before coming to an abrupt halt. These observations indicate that the ice mélange experiences widespread jamming during calving events and is always close to being in a jammed state during periods of terminus quiescence. We therefore suspect that local jamming influences longer timescale ice mélange dynamics and stress transmission.
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The morphology of supraglacial lake ogivesSupraglacial lakes on grounded regions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets sometimes produce ‘lake ogives’ or banded structures that sweep downstream from the lakes. Using a variety of remote-sensing data, we demonstrate that lake ogives originate from supraglacial lakes that form each year in the same bedrock-fixed location near the equilibrium-line altitude. As the ice flows underneath one of these lakes, an ‘image’ of the lake is imprinted on the ice surface both by summer- season ablation and by superimposed ice (lake ice) formation. Ogives associated with a lake are sequenced in time, with the downstream ogives being the oldest, and with spatial separation equal to the local annual ice displacement. In addition, lake ogives can have decimeter- to meter-scale topographic relief, much like wave ogives that form below icefalls on alpine glaciers. Our observations highlight the fact that lake ogives, and other related surface features, are a consequence of hydrological processes in a bedrock-fixed reference frame. These features should arise naturally from physically based thermodynamic models of supraglacial water transport, and thus they may serve as fiducial features that help to test the performance of such models.
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Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: Selected BibliographyISER prepared this list of books, reports, and other resources on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act for the ANCSA @ 40 Committee. It is the most comprehensive such list we are aware of, but there are likely additional resources yet to be identified. Some of these resources are now out of print and may be available at used bookstores or at libraries. More recent publications can be obtained from the publishers or at bookstores. You can also find resources on websites, as noted in the citations.
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Quantifying expert opinion with discrete choice models: Invasive elodea's influence on Alaska salmonidsScientific evidence should inform environmental policy, but rapid environmental change brings high ecological uncertainty and associated barriers to the science-management dialogue. Biological invasions of aquatic plants are a worldwide problem with uncertain ecological and economic consequences. We demonstrate that the discrete choice method (DCM) can serve as a structured expert elicitation alternative to quantify expert opinion across a range of possible but uncertain environmental outcomes. DCM is widely applied in the social sciences to better understand and predict human preferences and trade-offs. Here we apply it to Alaska's first submersed invasive aquatic freshwater plant, Elodea spp. (elodea), and its unknown effects on salmonids. While little is known about interactions between elodea and salmonids, ecological research suggests that aquatic plant invasions can have positive and negative, as well as direct and indirect, effects on fish. We use DCM to design hypothetical salmonid habitat scenarios describing elodea's possible effect on critical environmental conditions for salmonids: prey abundance, dissolved oxygen, and vegetation cover. We then observe how experts choose between scenarios that they believe could support persistent salmonid populations in elodea-invaded salmonid habitat. We quantify the relative importance of habitat characteristics that influence expert choice and investigate how experts trade off between habitat characteristics. We take advantage of Bayesian techniques to estimate discrete choice models for individual experts and to simulate expert opinion for specific environmental management situations. We discuss possible applications and advantages of the DCM approach for expert elicitation in the ecological context. We end with methodological questions for future research.
