Minor Imbalance of the Lowermost Italian Glacier from 2006 to 2019
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Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences (DI4A), University of Udine, Via delle Scienze, 206, 33100 Udine, Italy
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Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste (DSV), Via E. Weiss, 2, 34128 Trieste, Italy
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Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TESAF), University of Padova, Viale dell’Università, 16, 35020 Legnaro (Padova), Italy
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Department of Geosciences, University of Padova, Via Gradenigo, 206, 35131 Padova, Italy
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Chair of Physical Geography, Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, 85072 Eichstaett, Germany
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Autonomous Region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Direzione Centrale Risorse Agroalimentari, Forestali e Ittiche, Servizio Foreste e Corpo Forestale, Struttura Stabile Centrale per L’attività di Prevenzione del Rischio da Valanga, 33100 Udine, Italy
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Water 2020, 12(9), 2503; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12092503
Received: 13 August 2020
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Revised: 29 August 2020
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Accepted: 4 September 2020
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Published: 8 September 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transformation of Glacial and Periglacial Environments in Mountain Regions)
The response of very small glaciers to climate changes is highly scattered and little known in comparison with larger ice bodies. In particular, small avalanche-fed and debris-covered glaciers lack mass balance series of sufficient length. In this paper we present 13 years of high-resolution observations over the Occidentale del Montasio Glacier, collected using Airborne Laser Scanning, Terrestrial Laser Scanning, and Structure from Motion Multi-View Stereo techniques for monitoring its geodetic mass balance and surface dynamics. The results have been analyzed jointly with meteorological variables, and compared to a sample of “reference” glaciers for the European Alps. From 2006 to 2019 the mass balance showed high interannual variability and an average rate much closer to zero than the average of the Alpine reference glaciers (−0.09 vs. −1.42 m water equivalent per year, respectively). This behavior can be explained by the high correlation between annual balance and solid precipitation, which displayed recent peaks. The air temperature is not significantly correlated with the mass balance, which is main controlled by avalanche activity, shadowing and debris cover. However, its rapid increase is progressively reducing the fraction of solid precipitation, and increasing the length of the ablation season.
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Keywords:
glacier mass balance; glacier dynamics; very small glaciers; debris-covered glaciers; climate change; geodetic method; Structure from Motion (SfM); Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS)
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MDPI and ACS Style
De Marco, J.; Carturan, L.; Piermattei, L.; Cucchiaro, S.; Moro, D.; Dalla Fontana, G.; Cazorzi, F. Minor Imbalance of the Lowermost Italian Glacier from 2006 to 2019. Water 2020, 12, 2503. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12092503
AMA Style
De Marco J, Carturan L, Piermattei L, Cucchiaro S, Moro D, Dalla Fontana G, Cazorzi F. Minor Imbalance of the Lowermost Italian Glacier from 2006 to 2019. Water. 2020; 12(9):2503. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12092503
Chicago/Turabian StyleDe Marco, Jessica, Luca Carturan, Livia Piermattei, Sara Cucchiaro, Daniele Moro, Giancarlo Dalla Fontana, and Federico Cazorzi. 2020. "Minor Imbalance of the Lowermost Italian Glacier from 2006 to 2019" Water 12, no. 9: 2503. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12092503
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