Ground-based thermal infrared imagery for tropical glaciers: insights from the Cordillera Blanca, Peru
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Like alpine glaciers around the planet, the glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca are quickly retreating, affecting the downstream environment. To understand the impacts of glacier recession on downstream environment, it is of prime importance to first understand the driving processes of glaciers melt at the headwaters. Due to their remote location and often complicated access, obtaining in-situ, glacier-wide data for alpine glaciers is challenging. New tools and methods are needed to properly investigate what controls the energy balance and melt of these glaciers. An emerging technique to investigate melt processes in these complex settings is ground-based infrared imagery. Here we use high-definition ground-based infrared thermal imagery, paired with traditional weather monitoring instruments located on and adjacent to the glacier, to obtain high temporal and spatial resolution surface temperature dataset of the Cuchillacocha glacier in the Cordillera Blanca for the 2014 dry season. We present a methodology to capture and process the infrared images into an accurate surface temperature datasets. Using this distributed temperature dataset, we investigate sub-meter scale processes at the glacier surface, such as the effect of surface cover type and the temperature gradient at the glacier margins. We show that the glacier surface temperature varies on a sub-meter spatial scale and sub-hourly timescale. The longwave radiation transfer at the glacier's margin is further investigated. In clear sky conditions, due to their difference in albedo, the rock adjacent to the glacier absorbs more incoming shortwave radiation than the glacier margin. The rock heats up and emits longwave radiations that reach the glacier margin. This longwave radiation flux was calculated to vary between 80 and 120 Wm-2 daily, which is large enough to compensate the glacier net longwave radiation (incoming from the atmosphere and outgoing from the glacier surface). This results in a positive net longwave flux at the glacier's margin, versus a typically negative longwave flux as seen on the glacier surface further from the margin.This study shows the potential utility for collecting and analyzing ground based infrared imagery for glacier studies, with implications for hydrologic and water resource applications. The ground based infrared camera has the potential for greatly improving glacier energy budget studies by providing otherwise unobtainable distributed surface temperature data. Moreover, including the quantification of the longwave flux at the glacier's margin from the adjacent rock surface, an ablation process that was previously not accounted for in tropical glacier melt models, in the energy balance calculation results in an improved assessment of glacier energy budget and melt water generation of tropical glaciers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".