Department of Hydrology and Hydrophysics, Limnological Institute, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 664033 Irkutsk, Russia.
Deaprtment of Ecohydrology and Biogeochemistry, Lebiniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), 12587 Berlin, Germany.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Dec 20;21(24):8505. doi: 10.3390/s21248505.
Continuous monitoring of ice cover belongs to the key tasks of modern climate research, providing up-to-date information on climate change in cold regions. While a strong advance in ice monitoring worldwide has been provided by the recent development of remote sensing methods, quantification of seasonal ice cover is impossible without on-site autonomous measurements of the mass and heat budget. In the present study, we propose an autonomous monitoring system for continuous in situ measuring of vertical temperature distribution in the near-ice air, the ice strata and the under-ice water layer for several months with simultaneous records of solar radiation incoming at the lake surface and passing through the snow and ice covers as well as snow and ice thicknesses. The use of modern miniature analog and digital sensors made it possible to make a compact, energy efficient measurement system with high precision and spatial resolution and characterized by easy deployment and transportation. In particular, the high resolution of the ice thickness probe of 0.05 mm allows to resolve the fine-scale processes occurring in low-flow environments, such as freshwater lakes. Several systems were tested in numerous studies in Lake Baikal and demonstrated a high reliability in deriving the ice heat balance components during ice-covered periods.
连续监测冰盖属于现代气候研究的关键任务，为寒冷地区的气候变化提供最新信息。虽然遥感方法的最新发展为冰监测提供了巨大的进步，但如果没有对质量和热量收支进行现场自主测量，就不可能对季节性冰盖进行量化。在本研究中，我们提出了一种自主监测系统，用于连续原位测量近冰空气、冰层和冰下水层的垂直温度分布，同时记录到达湖面的太阳辐射以及穿过雪和冰盖以及雪和冰厚度的太阳辐射。现代微型模拟和数字传感器的使用使得制造具有高精度和空间分辨率的紧凑、节能测量系统成为可能，并且易于部署和运输。特别是，冰层厚度探头的高分辨率为 0.05 毫米，可解决低流量环境（如淡水湖）中发生的细微过程。在贝加尔湖的多项研究中测试了多个系统，并在冰盖期间证明了其推导冰热平衡分量的高可靠性。
