From single point of measurement to distributed sensing in long-term glacier monitoring

Glacial environment monitoring is a key task in understanding natural phenomena related to global warming. For the last 30 years, Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs) have been spreading among the meteorological and geophysical community, and are on the way to become a de facto standard to perform long-lasting unattended data acquisitions in single localized points of interest. Sensor Networks (SNs), on the other hand, promise the possibility to perform measurements with a higher spatial density and lower cost. Designing and developing a SN for glacial environment face particular challenges for embedded electronics and sensor systems, which is why SNs are still under research and development in this field. This paper surveys the AWSs and SNs for glacial monitoring applications and compares their characteristics.