Technical note: Introduction of a superconducting gravimeter as novel hydrological sensor for the Alpine research catchment Zugspitze
Creators: name: Voigt, Christian
name: Schulz, Karsten
name: Koch, Franziska
name: Wetzel, Karl-Friedrich
name: Timmen, Ludger
name: Rehm, Till
name: Pflug, Hartmut
name: Stolarczuk, Nico
name: Förste, Christoph
name: Flechtner, Frank
Publisher: name: Göttingen : Copernicus
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Catchments
subject: Climate change
subject: Digital storage
subject: Gravimeters
subject: Observatories
subject: Runoff
subject: Sailing vessels
subject: Sensitivity analysis
subject: Sensor networks
subject: Water supply
subject: Alpine catchments
subject: Alpine regions
subject: Geosciences
subject: High sensitivity
subject: Mean annual precipitation
subject: Research center
subject: Seasonal snow cover
subject: Superconducting gravimeter
subject: Technical notes
subject: Water storage variation
subject: Snow
subject: alpine environment
subject: catchment
subject: instrumentation
subject: sensor
subject: Alps
subject: Bavaria
subject: Bavarian Alps
subject: Central Alps
subject: Wetterstein Mountains
subject: Zugspitze
subject: Dewey Decimal Classification::500 | Naturwissenschaften::550 | Geowissenschaften

description: GFZ (German Research Centre for Geosciences) set up the Zugspitze Geodynamic Observatory Germany with a worldwide unique installation of a superconducting gravimeter at the summit of Mount Zugspitze on top of the Partnach spring catchment. This high alpine catchment is well instrumented, acts as natural lysimeter and has significant importance for water supply to its forelands, with a large mean annual precipitation of 2080ĝ€¯mm and a long seasonal snow cover period of 9 months, while showing a high sensitivity to climate change. However, regarding the majority of alpine regions worldwide, there is only limited knowledge on temporal water storage variations due to sparsely distributed hydrological and meteorological sensors and the large variability and complexity of signals in alpine terrain. This underlines the importance of well-equipped areas such as Mount Zugspitze serving as natural test laboratories for improved monitoring, understanding and prediction of alpine hydrological processes. The observatory superconducting gravimeter, OSG 052, supplements the existing sensor network as a novel hydrological sensor system for the direct observation of the integral gravity effect of total water storage variations in the alpine research catchment at Zugspitze. Besides the experimental set-up and the available data sets, the gravimetric methods and gravity residuals are presented based on the first 27 months of observations from 29 December 2018 to 31 March 2021. The snowpack is identified as being a primary contributor to seasonal water storage variations and, thus, to the gravity residuals with a signal range of up to 750ĝ€¯nms-2 corresponding to 1957ĝ€¯mm snow water equivalent measured with a snow scale at an altitude of 2420ĝ€¯m at the end of May 2019. Hydro-gravimetric sensitivity analysis reveal a snow-gravimetric footprint of up to 4ĝ€¯km distance around the gravimeter, with a dominant gravity contribution from the snowpack in the Partnach spring catchment. This shows that the hydro-gravimetric approach delivers representative integral insights into the water balance of this high alpine site. © Copyright: