Hintereisferner Experiment (HEFEX)
During the summer of 2018 an intense measurement campaign (HEFEX) took place on Hintereisferner glacier, Austria. HEFEEX focused on studying the multi-scale interactions between the glacier surface, the overlying atmosphere, and the surrounding alpine terrain, with a special focus on horizontal heterogeneity of turbulent fluxes, the influence of advection from the non-glaciated areas and turbulence characteristics of katabatic flows that develop on the glacier.
The experimental set-up consisted of five meteorological stations arranged along two transects (along- and across-glacier) designed to capture the spatial and temporal characteristics of the local wind system on the glacier and the advection from the surrounding ice-free areas. The 3m floating tripod towers were equipped with wind measurements at three heights, as well as temperature, relative humidity and pressure measurements at one height. In addition, sonic anemometers were installed at two measurement levels, while two towers had additional fast response measurements of humidity at the lowest measurement level allowing the quantification of the latent heat flux.
The tower measurements were supplemented by thermal imaging of near surface airflow, as well as local photogrammetric and wind tower measurements of surface roughness by the team from the University of Leeds (Mark Smith) , as well as large scale terrestrial laser scanner by the team from the University of Innsbruck (Rudi Sailer).
More information on the measurement campaign can be found here and here.
Project Leaders
Rebecca Mott (SLF)
Students: Alexander Kehl, Maximilian Kehl, Zora Schirmeister, Anna Wirbel
Duration
2-22. August 2018
Publications