[1] We used airborne altimetry measurements to determine the volume changes of 23 glaciers in the western Chugach Mountains, Alaska, United States, between 1950/1957. Average net balance rates ranged between À3.1 to 0.16 m yr À1 for the tidewater and À1.5 to À0.02 m yr À1 for the nontidewater glaciers. We tested several methods for extrapolating these measurements to all the glaciers of the western Chugach Mountains using a process similar to cross validation. Predictions of individual glacier changes appear to be difficult, probably because of the effects of glacier dynamics, which on long (multidecadal) timescales, complicates the response of glaciers to climate. In contrast, estimates of regional contributions to rising sea level were similar for different methods, mainly because the large glaciers, whose changes dominated the regional total, were among those measured. For instance, the above sea level net balance rate of Columbia glacier (À3.1 ± 0.08 km 3 yr À1 water equivalent (weq) or an equivalent rise in sea level (SLE) of 0.0090 ± 0.0002 mm yr

No abstract

No abstract

Editor’s note: For easy download the posted pdf of the State of the Climate for 2019 is a low-resolution file. A high-resolution copy of the report is available by clicking here. Please be patient as it may take a few minutes for the high-resolution file to download.

No abstract