Combined Use of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 for Glacier Mapping: An Application Over Central East Alps

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Age of the Mt. Ortles ice cores, the Tyrolean Iceman and glaciation of the highest summit of South Tyrol since the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum

In 2011 four ice cores were extracted from the summit of Alto dell'Ortles (3859 m), the highest glacier of South Tyrol in the Italian Alps. This drilling site is located only 37 km southwest from where the Tyrolean Iceman, similar to 5.3 kyrs old, was discovered emerging from the ablating ice field of Tisenjoch (3210 m, near the Italian-Austrian border) in 1991. The excellent preservation of this mummy suggested that the Tyrolean Iceman was continuously embedded in prehistoric ice and that additional ancient ice was likely preserved elsewhere in South Tyrol. Dating of the ice cores from Alto dell'Ortles based on Pb-210, tritium, beta activity and C-14 determinations, combined with an empirical model (COPRA), provides evidence for a chronologically ordered ice stratigraphy from the modern glacier surface down to the bottom ice layers with an age of similar to 7 kyrs, which confirms the hypothesis. Our results indicate that the drilling site has continuously been glaciated on frozen bedrock since similar to 7 kyrs BP. Absence of older ice on the highest glacier of South Tyrol is consistent with the removal of basal ice from bedrock during the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum (6-9 kyrs BP), the warmest interval in the European Alps during the Holocene. Borehole inclinometric measurements of the current glacier flow combined with surface ground penetration radar (GPR) measurements indicate that, due to the sustained atmospheric warming since the 1980s, an acceleration of the glacier Alto dell'Ortles flow has just recently begun. Given the stratigraphic-chronological continuity of the Mt. Ortles cores over millennia, it can be argued that this behaviour has been unprecedented at this location since the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum

High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound for Prostate Cancer: Long-Term Followup and Complications Rate

Introduction. As it is well known, High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is a minimally invasive procedure for prostate cancer. Many investigators reported their series of patients, demonstrating the effectiveness of the treatment. The most majority of Authors, however, do not report the side effects and the complications of the procedure, which is the aim of our study. The diagnosis and management of complications is discussed, and the oncologic outcome is reported in terms of quality of life. Materials and Methods. We report our experience in 89 patients, low-, intermediate-, and high-risk patients according with D’Amico classification. All data collected along the study were analyzed, including side effects and complications of the procedure. Results. Our series demonstrates the effectiveness of the procedure, in line with larger series reported in literature by other investigators. The most important side effects are sexual function impairment and transient incontinence in a minority of cases. Minor complications are reported as well as rare cases of major complications, which can require surgical treatment

Ice thickness measurements on South Tyrolean glaciers 1996-2014

The ice thickness of 15 South Tyrolean glaciers has been surveyed with two different types of radar systems between 1996 and 2014 within various research projects. For all glaciers apart from Weissbrunnferner, the Laser scan DEMs of the South Tyrolean glacier inventories had been taken as basis for the data processing. Earlier data has been measured with the Narod Sensor using a central frequency of 6.5 MHz, later data was recorded with a GSSI SIR 3000 system. The positions have been measured with a Garmin handheld GPS. The snow height at the time of the measurement was recorded by snow probing. The majority of the glaciers have been surveyed between 2009 and 2014, 9 glaciers in the year 2013. The methods for measurements and calculation of ice thickness are described in the various reports

Area and volume loss of the glaciers in the Ortles-Cevedale group (Eastern Italian Alps): controls and imbalance of the remaining glaciers

A widespread loss of glacier area and volume has been observed in the European Alps since the 1980s. In addition to differences among various regions of the Alps, different responses to climate change characterize neighboring glaciers within the same region. In this study we describe the glacier changes in the Ortles-Cevedale group, the largest glacierized area in the Italian Alps. We analyze the spatial variability, the drivers, and the main factors controlling the current loss of ice in this region, by comparing mean elevation changes derived from two digital terrain models (DTMs), along with glacier extents and snow-covered areas derived from Landsat images acquired in 1987 and 2009, to various topographic factors. Glacier outlines were obtained using the band ratio method with manual corrections. Snow was classified from a near-infrared image after topographic correction. The total glacierized area shrank by 23.4±3% in this period, with no significant changes in the mean altitude of the glaciers. In 2009 the snowline was 240 m higher than in the 1960s and 1970s. From the snow-covered area at the end of summer 2009, which fairly represents the extent and local variability of the accumulation areas in the 2000s, we estimate that approximately 50 % of the remaining glacier surfaces have to melt away to re-establish balanced mass budgets with present climatic conditions. The average geodetic mass budget rate, calculated for 112 ice bodies by differencing two DTMs, ranged from −0.18 ± 0.04 to −1.43 ± 0.09 m w.e. a−1 , averaging −0.69 ± 0.12 m w.e. a−1. The correlation analysis of mass budgets vs. topographic variables emphasized the important role of hypsometry in controlling the area and volume loss of larger glaciers, whereas a higher variability characterizes smaller glaciers, which is likely due to the higher importance of local topo-climatic conditions

Data from air, englacial and permafrost temperature measurements on Mt. Ortles (Eastern European Alps)

The *.xlsx files report the temperature data recorded between 2010 and 2016 and presented in the paper “Modern air, englacial and permafrost temperatures at high altitude on Mt. Ortles, (3905 m a.s.l.) in the Eastern European Alps” (Carturan et al., 2023, submitted). The data were used to display the time series reported in the paper, which details variable names, data quality flags, maintenance logs of field operations, and characteristics of measurement sites. The data files are the following: Ortles_Air_temperature.xlsx: includes the air temperature data measured by five sensors installed on an automatic weather station. Ortles_englacial_temperature.xlsx: includes the englacial temperature measured at different depths by four thermistor strings. Ortles_soilsurface_temperature.xlsx: includes the soil surface temperature measured at six different locations over deglaciated terrain. Ortles_rockwall_temperature.xlsx: includes the rockwal temperature measured at three different depths and six different locations. Each *.xlsx file contains the following fields: “Date and hour (UTC)”: format day/month/year hour:minute; “Variable name (depth m)”: name of the measured variable and the sensor depth (if applicable); “Quality flag code”: a code reporting data quality; Different spreadsheet report temperature data from different measurement sites.This dataset was collected in the framework of the Ortles Project (a program supported by two NSF awards no. 1060115 & no. 1461422 to The Ohio State University and by the Ripartizione Protezione Antincendi e Civile of the Autonomous province of Bolzano in collaboration with the Ripartizione Opere idrauliche e Ripartizione Foreste of the Autonomous province of Bolzano and the Stelvio National Park) and of the Italian MIUR Project (PRIN 2010-11), "Response of morphoclimatic system dynamics to global changes and related geomorphological hazards" (local and national coordinators G. Dalla Fontana and C. Baroni)