Temperature Measurements in Athabasca Glacier, Alberta, Canada

Abstract

AbstractThe temperature in the ablation area of Athabasca Glacier is about —0.5°C at a depth of 10 m. Below 17 m the temperature is slightly below the calculated pressure melting point (average difference 0.01 deg) in some places. Heat produced by ice deformation is calculated as a function of depth in two bore holes. Only in about the lower half of the glacier thickness is this heat sufficient to maintain the ice at the observed temperature as the hydrostatic pressure is reduced by ablation. Freezing of water within the ice must provide heat for this purpose elsewhere in the glacier; it must also provide heat to maintain the deeper ice close to the melting point even though the 10 m temperature is negative. The minimum water content needed is estimated to be between 0.5 and 1%. It is argued that most of this water must be water trapped between grains when the ice formed from firn. The small difference from the pressure melting temperature measured below 17 m probably arises either from impurities or because, as a result of heat supplied for pressure-melting of ice around air bubbles, the ice is at the melting point corresponding to the bubble pressure rather than to the hydrostatic pressure.