Articles | Volume 28, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-139-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-139-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Projecting sediment export from two highly glacierized alpine catchments under climate change: exploring non-parametric regression as an analysis tool
Lena Katharina Schmidt
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute of Environmental Sciences and Geography, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
Till Francke
Institute of Environmental Sciences and Geography, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
Peter Martin Grosse
Institute of Environmental Sciences and Geography, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
Axel Bronstert
Institute of Environmental Sciences and Geography, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
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We present a suitable method to reconstruct sediment export from decadal records of hydroclimatic predictors (discharge, precipitation, temperature) and shorter suspended sediment measurements. This lets us fill the knowledge gap on how sediment export from glacierized high-alpine areas has responded to climate change. We find positive trends in sediment export from the two investigated nested catchments with step-like increases around 1981 which are linked to crucial changes in glacier melt.
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Cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) allows for the non-invasive estimation of root-zone soil water content (SWC). The signal observed by a single CRNS sensor is influenced by the SWC in a radius of around 150 m (the footprint). Here, we have put together a cluster of eight CRNS sensors with overlapping footprints at an agricultural research site in north-east Germany. That way, we hope to represent spatial SWC heterogeneity instead of retrieving just one average SWC estimate from a single sensor.
Lena Katharina Schmidt, Till Francke, Peter Martin Grosse, Christoph Mayer, and Axel Bronstert
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Monitoring of increasingly frequent droughts is a prerequisite for climate adaptation strategies. This data paper presents long-term soil moisture measurements recorded by 66 cosmic-ray neutron sensors (CRNS) operated by 24 institutions and distributed across major climate zones in Europe. Data processing followed harmonized protocols and state-of-the-art methods to generate consistent and comparable soil moisture products and to facilitate continental-scale analysis of hydrological extremes.
Till Francke, Maik Heistermann, Markus Köhli, Christian Budach, Martin Schrön, and Sascha E. Oswald
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Cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is a non-invasive tool for measuring hydrogen pools like soil moisture, snow, or vegetation. This study presents a directional shielding approach, aiming to measure in specific directions only. The results show that non-directional neutron transport blurs the signal of the targeted direction. For typical instruments, this does not allow acceptable precision at a daily time resolution. However, the mere statistical distinction of two rates is feasible.
Maik Heistermann, Till Francke, Martin Schrön, and Sascha E. Oswald
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Cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is a powerful technique for retrieving representative estimates of soil moisture in footprints extending over hectometres in the horizontal and decimetres in the vertical. This study, however, demonstrates the potential of CRNS to obtain spatio-temporal patterns of soil moisture beyond isolated footprints. To that end, we analyse data from a unique observational campaign that featured a dense network of more than 20 neutron detectors in an area of just 1 km2.
Erwin Rottler, Axel Bronstert, Gerd Bürger, and Oldrich Rakovec
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 2353–2371, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2353-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2353-2021, 2021
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The mesoscale hydrological model (mHM) forced with an ensemble of climate projection scenarios was used to assess potential future changes in flood seasonality in the Rhine River basin. Results indicate that future changes in flood characteristics are controlled by increases in precipitation sums and diminishing snowpacks. The decreases in snowmelt can counterbalance increasing precipitation, resulting in only small and transient changes in streamflow maxima.
Benjamin Fersch, Till Francke, Maik Heistermann, Martin Schrön, Veronika Döpper, Jannis Jakobi, Gabriele Baroni, Theresa Blume, Heye Bogena, Christian Budach, Tobias Gränzig, Michael Förster, Andreas Güntner, Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen, Mandy Kasner, Markus Köhli, Birgit Kleinschmit, Harald Kunstmann, Amol Patil, Daniel Rasche, Lena Scheiffele, Ulrich Schmidt, Sandra Szulc-Seyfried, Jannis Weimar, Steffen Zacharias, Marek Zreda, Bernd Heber, Ralf Kiese, Vladimir Mares, Hannes Mollenhauer, Ingo Völksch, and Sascha Oswald
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2289–2309, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2289-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2289-2020, 2020
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Short summary
How suspended sediment export from glacierized high-alpine areas responds to future climate change is hardly assessable as many interacting processes are involved, and appropriate physical models are lacking. We present the first study, to our knowledge, exploring machine learning to project sediment export until 2100 in two high-alpine catchments. We find that uncertainties due to methodological limitations are small until 2070. Negative trends imply that peak sediment may have already passed.
How suspended sediment export from glacierized high-alpine areas responds to future climate...