Glaciers cover ca 10% of the Earth's land and are found in the high altitudes and latitudes. They are important components of environmental systems due to the multiple feedbacks linking them with the atmosphere, hydrosphere and periglacial landscapes. The cold sloping surfaces of glaciers change the patterns of atmospheric circulation at different scales and at the same time glaciers are largely controlled by climate. They are commonly used as climatic archives for reconstruction of the past environmental changes based on evidences from the areas affected by glaciation at the moment and in the past. Glaciers are the largest fresh-water reservoirs on our planet and runoff thereof significantly affects the global sea level and life in glaciated catchments. However, melt- and rain-induced runoff from glaciers greatly depends on the subsurface conditions which thus need to be taken into account, particularly in a changing climate. This thesis focuses on the processes of subsurface mass and energy exchange in the accumulation zones of glaciers, which are largely driven by the climate at the surface. Results are largely based on empirical data from Lomonosovfonna ice cap, Svalbard, collected during field campaigns in 2012-2017. Observations of subsurface density and stratigraphy using shallow cores, video records from boreholes and radar surveys returned detailed descriptions of the snow and firn layering. The subsurface temperature data collected using multiple thermistor strings provided insights into several subsurface processes. The temperature values measured during three summer seasons were used to constrain the suggested parameterization of deep preferential water flow through snow and firn. The part of data recorded during the cold seasons was employed for an inverse modelling exercise resulting in optimized values of effective thermal conductivity of the subsurface profile. These results are then used to compute the subsurface water content by comparing the simulated and measured rates of freezing front propagation after the melt season in 2014. The field observations and quantitative estimates provide further empirical evidences of preferential water flow in snow/firn packs at glaciers. Results presented in the thesis call for implementation of description of the process in layered models simulating the subsurface fluxes of energy and mass at glaciers. This will result in a better understanding of glacier response to the past and future climatic changes and more accurate estimates of glacier runoff. / Stability and Variations of Arctic Land Ice (SVALI)

Semi-natural grasslands with traditional management are known to be very species-rich, with many plant species strongly associated with the habitat. The last century’s decline of semi-natural grasslands, as a result of land use change and abandonment, has made the remaining semi-natural grassland a high concern for conservation. Since management can be costly and the available resources often are limited, it is important to use the most beneficial management method for preserving and enhancing the biodiversity. One semi-natural grassland type of certain interest around the Baltic region are coastal grasslands. In this study, I investigated vascular plant species occurrence in ten managed coastal grasslands located in the Stockholm archipelago. The effect of recent land-uplift and future sea level rise on the ten coastal grasslands were analyzed as well. A major part of all ten grasslands had been subjected to the process of isostatic land-uplift the past 100 years. Five of the grasslands were currently managed by grazing and the other five were managed by traditional mowing. There was no significant difference in alpha and gamma diversity between the two management types. Though, higher biodiversity values, such as more different species found in total, higher amount of species typically linked to meadows and pastures, less succession species and more red-listed species, were found in the traditionally mowed grasslands. Furthermore, a sea level rise with 40 cm the next 100 years in the region would lead to loss of plant species diversity in the investigated coastal grasslands. One major concern is the limited areas upwards on the coastal grasslands for species to migrate to in the future, which is expected to primarily affect species associated with meadows and pastures. The study highlights the importance of open and managed grassland areas further up the coastal grasslands for local species to migrate to, if the sea level would rise as predicted by future climate scenarios. Albeit weak the results of this study indicate that traditional mowing generates higher biodiversity values compared to grazing, hence it should be the preferred management method in coastal grasslands in the Stockholm archipelago.

Pore water pressure in a silt slope in Sollefteå, Sweden, was measured from 2009-2016. The results from2009-2012 were presented and evaluated in a publication by Westerberg et al. (2014) and this report is an extension of that project.In a silt slope the pore water pressures are generally negative, contributing to the stability of theslope. In this report the pore water pressure variations are analyzed using basic statistics and a connection between the pore water pressure variations, the geology and parameters such as temperature, precipitation and soil moisture are discussed.The soils in the slope at Nipuddsvägen consists of sandy silt, silt, clayey silt and silty clay. The main findings were that at 2, 4 and 6 m depth there are significant increases and decreases in the pore water pressure that can be linked with the changing of the seasons, for example there is a significant increase in the spring when the ground frost melts. As the seasons change, so do the temperature and amount and type of precipitation. Other factors that vary with the season are the amount of net radiation, wind speed and relative humidity, all of which affect the amount of evapotranspiration. At greater depths the pore water pressue is most likely affected by a factor/factors that varies from year to year, possibly the total amount of rainfall. Therefore, the anticipated increase in precipitation in Scandinavia due to climate change could be an important factor influencing slope stability.What precipitation, temperature and evapotranspiration have in common is that they affect the amount of water infiltrating the soil, and thereby the soil moisture content. How the soil moisture is distributed and flows through the soil (sub-surface flow) is governed by the different soil types and their mutual order in the slope, as well as by factors affecting the structure of the soil, e.g. animal burrows and aggregation. The formation of ground frost also affects the way in which the water present in the soil is redistributed.At c. 14 m depth in the slope, there is a saturated layer with positive pore water pressures, which could be one of several such layers. The overall groundwater situation in a silt slope is complex; several different bodies of water can develop, and to get a complete picture of the ground water situation (andthereby also the pore water pressure variations) thorough hydrological surveys are needed. / Under  2009-2016  mättes  porvattentrycket  i  en  siltslänt  i  Sollefteå.  Resultaten  från  2009-2012presenterades och utvärderades i en publikation av Westerberg et al. (2014) och detta examensarbete är en förlängning av det projektet.I en siltslänt är porvattentrycket vanligtvis negativt vilket bidrar till stabiliteten i slänten. I den härrapporten är variationerna av porvattentrycket analyserade med hjälp av enkel statistik och en koppling mellan variationerna och geologin samt parametrar så som temperatur, nederbörd och fukthalt i marken diskuteras.Jordarterna i slänten vid Nipuddsvägen består av sandig silt, silt, lerig silt och siltig lera. Slutsatsen var att på 2, 4 och 6 m djup ökade och minskade porvattentrycket med årstiderna, till exempel ökade porvattentrycket signifikant vid tjällossningen. När årstiderna skiftar ändras även temperaturen och mängden, och typen, av nederbörd. Andra faktorer som varierar över året är netto-instrålningen, vindhastigheten och den relativa fuktigheten och dessa faktorer påverkar i sin tur evapotranspirationen. På större djup beror antagligen portrycksvariationerna på någon eller några faktorer som skiljer sig åt från år till år, möjligtvis den totala mängden nederbörd. Därmed skulle den ökade nederbörd som förväntas i Skandinavien på grund av klimatförändringarna kunna påverka släntstabiliteten.Vad nederbörd, temeperatur och evapotranspiration har gemensamt är att de påverkar mängden vatten som infiltrerar marken, det vill säga de påverkar markens fukthalt. Hur vattnet är födelat i marken beror på de olika jordarterna och deras inbördes ordning i slänten, men också av faktorer som påverkar markens struktur så som aggregation och uppluckring av jorden på grund av marklevande djurs aktivitet. Även formationen av tjäle på vintern har troligtvis en viss inverkan på hur vattnet i marken omfördelas.På 14 m djup finns ett vattenmättat lager med positiva porvattentryck vilket skulle kunna vara ett av flera sådana lager. I en siltslänt är grundvattensituationen mycket komplex, flera magasin av vatten kan bildas. För att få en bra bild av grundvattensituationen (och där med också porvattentrycksvariationerna)behöver noggranna hydrologiska undersökningar genomföras.

It is well known that archaeological sites are important sources for understanding past human activity. However, those sites yet to be identified and further investigated are under a great risk of being lost or damaged before their archaeological significance is fully recognized. The aim of this research was to analyze the potential use of remote sensing and aerial archaeology techniques integrated within a geographic information system (GIS) for the purpose of remotely studying pit house archaeology. As pit house archaeological sites in North America have rarely been studied with a focus in remote sensing, this study intended to identify these features by processing very high resolution satellite imagery and assessing how accurately the identified features could be automatically mapped with the use of a GIS. A Worldview-2 satellite image of the Bridge River pit house village in Lillooet, south-central British Columbia, was processed within ArcGIS 10.1 (ESRI), ERDAS Imagine 2011 (Intergraph) and eCognition Developer 8 (Trimble) to identify spatial and spectral queues representing the pit house features. The study outlined three different feature extraction methods (GIS-based, pixel-based and object-based) and evaluated which method presented the best results. Though all three methods produced similar results, the potential for performing object-based feature extraction for research in aerial archaeology proved to be more advantageous than the other two extraction methods tested.

The content of atmospheric dust in ice cores from Greenland varies with changes in climate, but the exact relationship is yet unknown. To determine this correlation, the source of the Greenland dust must be known. There are several hypotheses on the location of the source, but no current methods have been sufficient in determining the exact origin. This study explores the possibility of using elemental geochemical composition as an indicator for the dust origin. Major and trace element concentrations in loess and red clay samples from loess areas in Northern America, Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and China were determined using handheld XRF. UCC-normalised values of major elements show similar trends for all areas, with depletion of Si, Al, Mg, K, Ti, Fe and Mn and enrichment of Ca and P in most samples. The elemental ratios Fe/Ti, Al2O3/SiO2, Al2O3/Ti, Fe/Al2O3, K2O/Al2O3, CaO/Al2O3, Rb/Sr and Zr/Rb display variations between areas, indicative of differences in weathering rates and grain sizes. The combined ratios Fe/Ti vs. K2O/Al2O3, Fe/Al2O3 or Al2O3/Ti can be used to differentiate loess from Canada, the US, central and eastern Europe, Israel and China. Central Asian loess however shows similar composition to Chinese loess. The results indicate that loess from different parts of the world have significant differences in elemental composition, which could potentially be used to differentiate between suggested sources of the Greenland dust. / Mängden stoft i isborrkärnor från Grönland varierar med förändringar i klimat, men det exakta sambandet är ännu okänt. För att kunna rekonstruera detta samband krävs att källan till stoftet är känd. Flera hypoteser finns idag kring denna källa, men inga hittills prövade metoder har kunnat urskilja ett definitivt ursprung. I detta arbete undersöks möjligheten att använda grundämnessammansättning som en indikator för stoftets ursprung. Koncentrationer av huvudelement och spårämnen i löss och röd lera från lössområden i Nordamerika, Europa, Mellanöstern, Centralasien och Kina bestämdes med handhållen XRF. UCC-normaliserade värden för huvudelement visar att områdena följer huvudsakligen liknande trender med reduktion av Si, Al, Mg, K, Ti, Fe och Mn och anrikning av Ca och P i de flesta prover. Grundämneskvoterna Fe/Ti, Al2O3/SiO2, Al2O3/Ti, Fe/Al2O3, K2O/Al2O3, CaO/Al2O3, Rb/Sr och Zr/Rb uppvisar tydlig variation mellan områden, indikativt för skillnader i vittring och kornstorlek. De kombinerade kvoterna Fe/Ti mot K2O/Al2O3, Fe/Al2O3 eller Al2O3/Ti kan användas för att särskilja löss från Kanada, USA, Central- och Östeuropa, Israel och Kina. Centralasiatisk löss uppvisar dock liknande sammansättning som kinesisk. Resultatet visar att löss från olika delar av världen har betydande skillnader i grundämnessammansättning, vilket skulle kunna användas som indikator för ursprunget till Grönlands stoft.

Glacial environments in the Arctic are a much-studied topic as well as a field of research with strong influences regarding the current and future global climate of our planet. This report is focused on the meteorological conditions on Nordenskiöldbreen glacier from 2009-2015 and how they correlate with each other, the glacier surface and the surrounding terrain. With data gathered from an automatic weather station located at the centre of the glacier, a range of meteorological parameters is examined; wind direction and velocity, snow depth, cloud cover, incoming and reflected shortwave radiation, temperature deficit, albedo and drifting snow. Seasonal differences were discovered, especially for wind direction and velocity where winds from the northeast occurred more frequently in the winter, indicating katabatic winds, whereas winds from the west and southwest were more pronounced in the summer. The calculated temperature deficit shows that katabatic winds blow down-glacier under stably stratified conditions and are shown to increase in strength with increasing temperature deficit (atmospheric temperature minus surface temperature). The mean albedo at Nordenskiöldbreen during this period is within the expected limits, 0.8 for snow and 0.3 for ice and the cloud cover was 0.58. Additionally, it could be observed that the occurrence of dry, drifting snow is present in the winter season as snow depth shows pronounced drops during high-wind events in winter. Overall, it is concluded that most of the examined parameters correlate and need each other to function and act as mechanisms within the cryosphere and as such it is crucial for scientists to understand their connected relationships when attempting to study global climate changes.

Varmare klimat är något som kontinuerligt påverkar glaciärer planeten över och har under det senaste århundrandet vidtagit en global ökning av negativa massbalanser. Denna trend kan bidra till variationer i havsnivån och orsaka problem med översvämningar över hela världen. Övervakning och observation av världens glaciärer är därför väldigt viktigt och genom att skapa modeller som tillåter insyn i glaciärernas respons till atmosfärisk fluktuation går det att åstadkomma en djupare förståelse för hur den globala uppvärmningen kommer att utvecklas. I detta projektet återskapas massbalansen för Brewster Glacier, Nya Zeeland, för perioden 2005 – 2015 genom tillämpning av graddagar. Modellen har försetts med data från ett nyligen genomfört nedskalningsprojekt som har producerat atmosfäriska data för perioden 1979 – 2015 vilket tillåter modellen att köras. Resultaten som presenteras kommer att bidra till större inblick i graddags-modellen om huruvida tillvägagångssättet att använda enkel temperatur- och nederbördsdata är tillförlitligt för att porträttera massbalansen för glaciärer. / Warmer climate is something that is continuously affecting glaciers across the planet and has during the last century gained a global increase in negative mass balances. This trend has contributed to sea-level rise and had other impacts on water resources. Monitoring and observing the worlds glaciers is therefore very important and by creating models that allows insight in the glacier response to atmospheric fluctuation, it is possible to obtain deeper knowledge on how the global warming will develop. In this project, the mass balance of Brewster Glacier, New Zealand, is reconstructed for the period 2005 – 2015 using a degree-day approach. The input for the model has been obtained from a recent downscaling project that has produced atmospheric data over the period 1979 – 2015 that allows the model to run at a daily temporal resolution. The results presented are going to contribute to a greater insight in the degree-day model as to whether the approach of using simple air temperature and precipitation data are reliable to portray the mass balance of glaciers.

In recent decades expanding land-use change has caused extensive deforestation of the tropical rainforestinducing large-scale transformation of the landscape patterns across the South American continent. Landscapechange is a modification process of the natural forest cover into fragments which generate various ecologicalimpacts. Habitat loss is identified to be a major threat to biodiversity, as it exposes species to the risk ofextinction. This study investigates 80 locations within tropical rainforest biomes to examine the landscape changewhich has occurred from 1993 – 2014. The intention is to identify the impacts of landscape fragmentation onhummingbird species diversity by spatial landscape analysis in GIS and regression modeling. The analysis foundthat there is no relationship between deforestation and reduction of hummingbird diversity. The results indicatethat hummingbird species are not particularly sensitive to landscape change as they have high resilience in regardto forest fragmentation. A potential threshold value of deforestation degree could be identified, up to whichhummingbird species richness increased, but locations subjected to over 40% fragmentation were estimated tohave lower hummingbird diversity. However, by using the spatial explicit biological data, the analysis indicatethat an extinction debt may exist in the landscape, and that future extinctions may be expected to occur in thefollowing decades as consequence of deforestation. Other factors may be as important determining variables forspecies richness: the spatial scale of the study, the habitat connectivity, hummingbird generalist tendencies.Conclusively, identification of the key factors of deforestation impacts on species diversity is essential for futureefficiency in conservation planning and sustainability of the tropical rainforest biodiversity.

The mapping of land cover using remotely sensed data is most effective when a robust classification method is employed. Random forest is a modern machine learning algorithm that has recently gained interest in the field of remote sensing due to its non-parametric nature, which may be better suited to handle complex, high-dimensional data than conventional techniques. In this study, the random forest method is applied to remote sensing data from the European Space Agency’s new Sentinel-2 satellite program, which was launched in 2015 yet remains relatively untested in scientific literature using non-simulated data. In a study site of boreo-nemoral forest in Ekerö mulicipality, Sweden, a classification is performed for six forest classes based on CadasterENV Sweden, a multi-purpose land covermapping and change monitoring program. The performance of Sentinel-2’s Multi-SpectralImager is investigated in the context of time series to capture phenological conditions, optimal band combinations, as well as the influence of sample size and ancillary inputs.Using two images from spring and summer of 2016, an overall map accuracy of 86.0% was achieved. The red edge, short wave infrared, and visible red bands were confirmed to be of high value. Important factors contributing to the result include the timing of image acquisition, use of a feature reduction approach to decrease the correlation between spectral channels, and the addition of ancillary data that combines topographic and edaphic information. The results suggest that random forest is an effective classification technique that is particularly well suited to high-dimensional remote sensing data.

To provide an increased breadth in the knowledge of tephra dispersal, this pilot study examines a peat core from Lakselv in Finnmark County in northern Norway. Peat samples are exposed to burning, HCl, density separation and polarized light microscopy. One sample from a depth of 37.5-40 cm was analysed using an electron microprobe analyser (EMPA). At least two tephra horizons were identified, one at a depth of 12.5-17.5 cm and one at 37.5-40 cm. The lower horizon shows a chemical composition similar to eruptives from Jan Mayen and São Miguel, Azores while the origin of the upper horizon is unknown as no geochemical analysis was performed for that depth.