The CalvingSEIS Workshop

This workshop evolved from the CalvingSEIS project (NFR) and The CalvingSEIS Experiment (SSF). In August 2016, an in-situ measurement campaign at the front of Kronebreen, Svalbard brought together 14 people from 6 nations and 9 nationalities over a 2 week period to measure processes and properties of individual calving events, their volumes, and their signals recorded on passive seismic and underwater acoustic instrumentation. The overarching goal to create a calibration dataset from which to relate the passive calving signals directly to ice volumes and fluxes. Besides the passive seismic and bioacoustics sensors deployed, the team used terrestrial lidar and radar, time lapse imagery and side-looking sonar. During the field campaign, other groups aboard the RV Helmer Hanssen were also measuring zooplankton, fish and fjord water conditions (temperature and salinity) at the front of Kronebreen. While the two groups were acting independently, partially unaware of the other, it is clear that the groups can benefit from each other. The compilation of these datasets not only makes up a unique encyclopedia of calving events and their specific properties but also provides a unique opportunity to characterize the components, connections and feedbacks in the glacio-marine transition zone. In summary, while the campaign was extremely successful with all instrumentation and data acquired, the most difficult part lies ahead in terms of the processing, comparison and interpretation of the results. Thus the goals of this workshop is to gather all groups that were measuring various parameters in front of Kronebreen, share results and data, and form partnerships for publication. This forum will be a catalyst to form new relationships and future projects that utilize resources available around Svalbard to better understand the fine scale processes around calving processes and glacier-ocean-biological interactions.