A reconciled estimate of glacier contributions to sea level rise: 2003 to 2009Gardner, Alex S; Bolch, Tobias; et al Abstract: Glaciers distinct from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are losing large amounts of water to the world's oceans. However, estimates of their contribution to sea level rise disagree. We provide a consensus estimate by standardizing existing, and creating new, mass-budget estimates from satellite gravimetry and altimetry and from local glaciological records. In many regions, local measurements are more negative than satellite-based estimates. All regions lost mass during [2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009], with the largest losses from Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes, and high-mountain Asia, but there was little loss from glaciers in Antarctica. Over this period, the global mass budget was -259 T 28 gigatons per year, equivalent to the combined loss from both ice sheets and accounting for 29 T 13% of the observed sea level rise.

Temperature index or degree-day models rest upon a claimed relationship between snow or ice melt and air temperature usually expressed in the form of positive temperatures. Since air temperature generally is the most readily available data, such models have been the most widely used method of ice and snow melt computations for many purposes, such as hydrological modelling, ice dynamic modelling or climate sensitivity studies. Despite their simplicity, temperature-index models have proven to be powerful tools for melt modelling, often on a catchment scale outperforming energy balance models. However, two shortcomings are evident: (1) although working well over long time periods their accuracy decreases with increasing temporal resolution; (2) spatial variability cannot be modelled accurately as melt rates may vary substantially due to topographic effects such as shading, slope and aspect angles. These effects are particularly crucial in mountain areas. This paper provides an overview of temperature-index methods, including glacier environments, and discusses recent advances on distributed approaches attempting to account for topographic effects in complex terrain, while retaining scarcity of data input. In the light of an increasing demand for melt estimates with high spatial and temporal resolution, such approaches need further refinement and development. q

The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) is a globally complete collection of digital outlines of glaciers, excluding the ice sheets, developed to meet the needs of the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for estimates of past and future mass balance. The RGI was created with limited resources in a short period. Priority was given to completeness of coverage, but a limited, uniform set of attributes is attached to each of the ~198 000 glaciers in its latest version, 3.2. Satellite imagery from 1999–2010 provided most of the outlines. Their total extent is estimated as 726 800 ± 34 000 km2. The uncertainty, about ±5%, is derived from careful single-glacier and basin-scale uncertainty estimates and comparisons with inventories that were not sources for the RGI. The main contributors to uncertainty are probably misinterpretation of seasonal snow cover and debris cover. These errors appear not to be normally distributed, and quantifying them reliably is an unsolved problem. Combined with digital elevation models, the RGI glacier outlines yield hypsometries that can be combined with atmospheric data or model outputs for analysis of the impacts of climatic change on glaciers. The RGI has already proved its value in the generation of significantly improved aggregate estimates of glacier mass changes and total volume, and thus actual and potential contributions to sea-level rise.

ABSTRACT. H o url y melt and disch a rge ofStorg lacia ren, a small g lacier in Sweden, wer e computed for two melt seasons, applying temper a ture-index method s to a 30 m resolution grid for th e m e lt component. Th e class ical d eg ree-d ay method yielded a good simulati on of the seaso na l pattern of di sch arge, but th e pro nounced melt-induced daily di scharge cycl es were not captured. Modelled deg ree-d ay fac tors caleul a ted for ever y ho ur and each gridcell from melt obtained from a di stributed energy-ba la nce model varied substa ntia ll y, b o th diurna ll y and sp a ti a ll y. A new di stributed te mp e ra ture-ind ex model is suggested , a ttempting to capture both th e pro no unced diurna l m elt cycles and the spati al vari ati o ns in m elt due to the effects of surrounding topography. This is acco mpli sh ed by including a r a di ation index in term s of po te nti a l cl ear-sky direc t solar radia tio n, and thus, witho ut the need for o ther data besides a ir temperature. Thi s approach i m proved considera bl y the si m ul ation of diu rn a l di sc ha rge flu ctuation s a nd yielded a more reali stic spa ti a l di stributi on of melt rates. Th e in o rporation of m eas ured globa l radia ti on to acco unt fo r th e reduction in direct sola r ra di a ti on due to clo udin ess did not lead to additi ona l improvement in model p erform a nce.

No abstract

Modelling ice and snow melt is of large practical and scientific interest, including issues such as water resource management, avalanche forecasting, glacier dynamics, hydrology and hydrochemistry, as well as the response of glaciers to climate change. During the last few decades, a large variety of melt models have been developed, ranging from simple temperature-index to sophisticated energy-balance models. There is a recent trend towards modelling with both high temporal and spatial resolution, the latter accomplished by fully distributed models. This review discusses the relevant processes at the surface-atmosphere interface, and their representation in melt models. Despite considerable advances in distributed melt modelling there is still a need to refine and develop models with high spatial and temporal resolution based on moderate input data requirements. While modelling of incoming radiation in mountain terrain is relatively accurate, modelling of turbulent fluxes and spatial and temporal variability in albedo constitute major uncertainties in current energy-balance melt models, and thus need further research.

The anticipated retreat of glaciers around the globe will pose far-reaching challenges to the management of fresh water resources and significantly contribute to sea-level rise within the coming decades. Here, we present a new model for calculating the twenty-first century mass changes of all glaciers on Earth outside the ice sheets. The Global Glacier Evolution Model (GloGEM) includes mass loss due to frontal ablation at marine-terminating glacier fronts and accounts for glacier advance/retreat and surface elevation changes. Simulations are driven with monthly near-surface air temperature and precipitation from 14 Global Circulation Models forced by RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 emission scenarios. Depending on the scenario, the model yields a global glacier volume loss of 25-48% between 2010 and 2100. For calculating glacier contribution to sea-level rise, we account for ice located below sea-level presently displacing ocean water. This effect reduces the glacier contribution by 11-14%, so that our model predicts a sea-level equivalent (multi-model mean ±1 standard deviation) of 79±24 mm (RCP2.6), 108±28 mm (RCP4.5), and 157±31 mm (RCP8.5). Mass losses by frontal ablation account for 10% of total ablation globally, and up to ∼30% regionally. Regional equilibrium line altitudes are projected to rise by ∼100-800 m until 2100, but the effect on ice wastage depends on initial glacier hypsometries.

No abstract