Brief communication: Thinning, radar-inferred wetness and the limits of point-scale snow modelling of the vanishing Nördlicher Schneeferner, Germany
A 2026 low-cost radar survey of Germany’s vanishing Nördlicher Schneeferner is compared with geodetic thickness and a SNOWPACK point simulation. Geodetic thickness at the transect fell from 25.9 m in 2015 to 5.55 m in 2025, at an accelerating rate. The simulation, driven by regional data, loses ice much more rapidly. If the tracked reflector is the actual bedrock, the radar requires 20-40 % bulk water content and its travel times exceed those of the modelled ice more than twofold.
Authors
- Wilfried Hagg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0554-1936)
- David‐Benjamin Grys (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4038-6388)
- Connor J. Taylor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4002-5937)
- William Hardiman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2452-4752)
- Larissa van der Laan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8892-9011)
- Peter J. Christopher
- Benedict Tamlyn
- Sal La Cavera
- Sammy Mahdi
Institutions
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Munich University of Applied Sciences (DE)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2026-10-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.15010658/v2
- Primary Topic
- Cryospheric studies and observations
- Type
- preprint