Introduction

The relation between meteorological quantities and the mass balance of a glacier surface is a critical element in modelling the reaction of different glaciers to climate change. To get a better hold on the processes that determine this interaction, the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University (IMAU), has conducted a number of detailed meteorological field studies and deployed several automatic weather stations (AWS) on glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets. The IMAU started with field studies with a short term (10 days) experiment on the Hintereisferner in Austria in 1986. The first AWS measuring year round was placed on the Greenland ice margin east of Kangerlussuaq in 1991. Since 1991, IMAU has deployed several AWS in various projects, with different funding sources, on different glaciers around the world (Antarctica, Greenland, Alps, Norway, Iceland, Svalbard), and in different climate regimes. The stations are designed to work for long periods without being serviced and offer the opportunity to measure meteorological variables in remote areas and in harsh weather conditions. The main purpose of these stations is to study the mass balance and energy balance at these locations in view of global climate change, sea level rise and historic climate reconstructions.

Contact information

For more information, questions or comments please contact us using the email adres below. Furthermore, please also inform us when using the information from this website in (peer reviewed) publications.

Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht Link
Email: imau @ science.uu.nl

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to all people and institutes who help and helped maintaining our weather stations all over the world. Without their help, financial or practical, the AWS would not have worked as well as they have. Financial support was provided in several different projects and by several different organizations. More extensive acknowledgements can be found HERE.

Links and activities

• IMAU activities in the International Polar Year 2007-2009. Link
• The Morteratschgletscher project - studying the microclimate of a valley glacier. Link
• IASC Workshop on the use of automated measuring systems on glaciers , 23-26 March 2011, Pontresina, Switzerland. Link
• Workshop on the use of Automatic Weather Stations on Glaciers, 28-31 March 2004, Pontresina, Switzerland. Link
• Workshop on the mass budget of Arctic glaciers: Link
  • 28 January - 1 February 2008, Obergurgl, Austria.
  • 15 January - 18 January 2007, Pontresina, Switzerland.
  • 30 January - 3 February 2006, Obergurgl, Austria.
  • 13-15 January 2005, Pontresina, Switzerland.