[A-CC25] Glaciology in the new normal

[ACC25-P06] The observation plan of glacier research and its modification due to covid-19

*Keiko Konya¹ (1.Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology)

Keywords:Glacier research, covid-19, the Arctic

As part of ArCSII project, observations of methane emitted from the Gulkana Glacier area in Alaska were planned for the summer of 2020. Methane is a greenhouse gas that has a large impact even in small amounts. In recent years, methane has been found to be emitted from the glacier area at the margin of the Greenland ice sheet and the Icelandic glacier area. While glacier areas are accounted for as new sources of methane, observation data are limited, and the mechanism of methane emission is unknown. Therefore, the authors have planned to conduct field measurements at the mountain glaciers area.
However, we found it impossible to carry out field observations due to covid-19. Since covid-19 was a global phenomenon, unlike SARS and MERS in the past, it was difficult to travel to countries where the number of infected people was higher than in Japan, or to areas where ethnic minorities lived in the Arctic region. In order to compensate for the missing data in 2020, we decided to construct a new method that is expected to get various data. As for 2021, the plan was divided into cases where observations could be conducted and cases where observations could not be conducted, and further changes were considered for the cases where observations could not be conducted.