Region: Greenland & Arctic Areas

Addy Pope (with Dr Adrian Luckman, and working in conjunction with a party from the University of Leeds). April-May 2002

With a 10-15 cm rise in sea level during the last 100 years, the Arctic has been identified as an area particularly sensitive to future climatic change. This team therefore planned to quantify the volume change of a number of glaciers in the Svalbard archipelago using digital photogrammetry, and compare results with those obtained from traditional methods. Work was carried out from two fieldsites: Ny Ålesund (between Austre Brøggerbreen and Midre Lovéenbreen) in the north, and at Svea (near Slakbreen) in the south, where a network of high accuracy GPS points were established to use as ground control. From these, Digital Elevation Models were generated, which will be compared with archived aerial photographs held by the Norsk Polar Institute. Mixed weather with temperatures ranging from above zero to -30º C caused inevitable problems with computers and batteries, but nevertheless sufficient data were obtained to occupy the team for several months in analysis.