Coupled modelling of glacier and streamflow response to future climate scenarios

Stahl, Kerstin; Moore, R. D.; Shea, J. M.; Hutchinson, David; Cannon, Alex J.

doi:10.1029/2007wr005956

Cited by 232 publications

(282 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…Due to the representation of glaciers as a dynamically changing storage component in the water cycle, the shift from an ice melt to a snow melt dominated runoff regime can be simulated transiently. Our results are in line with previous studies (Braun et al, 2000;Zierl and Bugmann, 2005;Stahl et al, 2008;Huss et al, 2008b) and indicate that this transition will take place until the end of the 21st century. During this time frame, water resource management will have to adapt to the major changes in the hydrological regime of high alpine catchments.…”

Section: Future Runoffsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…The retreat of mountain glaciers in response to ongoing climate change is expected to have major impacts on the water resources in alpine environments all over the world (e.g., Zierl and Bugmann, 2005;Horton et al, 2006;Hagg et al, 2006;Bradley, 2006;Stahl et al, 2008). Storage of fresh water in the seasonal snow cover and glacier ice is a key element in the water cycle on different temporal and spatial scales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Future high-mountain hydrology: a new parameterization of glacier retreat

Huss

Jouvet

Farinotti

et al. 2010

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

231

222

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Abstract. Global warming is expected to significantly affect the runoff regime of mountainous catchments. Simple methods for calculating future glacier change in hydrological models are required in order to reliably assess economic impacts of changes in the water cycle over the next decades. Models for temporal and spatial glacier evolution need to describe the climate forcing acting on the glacier, and ice flow dynamics. Flow models, however, demand considerable computational resources and field data input and are moreover not applicable on the regional scale. Here, we propose a simple parameterization for calculating the change in glacier surface elevation and area, which is mass conserving and suited for hydrological modelling. The h-parameterization is an empirical glacier-specific function derived from observations in the past that can easily be applied to large samples of glaciers. We compare the h-parameterization to results of a 3-D finite-element ice flow model. As case studies, the evolution of two Alpine glaciers of different size over the period 2008-2100 is investigated using regional climate scenarios. The parameterization closely reproduces the distributed ice thickness change, as well as glacier area and length predicted by the ice flow model. This indicates that for the purpose of transient runoff forecasts, future glacier geometry change can be approximated using a simple parameterization instead of complex ice flow modelling. Furthermore, we analyse alpine glacier response to 21st century climate change and consequent shifts in the runoff regime of a highly glacierized catchment using the proposed methods.

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Section: Future Runoffsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future high-mountain hydrology: a new parameterization of glacier retreat

Huss

Jouvet

Farinotti

et al. 2010

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

231

222

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Numerous model studies for a wide range of climatic settings have been performed, estimating future trends in the hydrology of glacierized basins (e.g., Juen et al, 2007;Stahl et al, 2008;Weber et al, 2010;Hagg et al, 2013;Bavay et al, 2013;Ragettli et al, 2013). As a robust result, a shift in the runoff regime and a decrease in melting season discharge is found on the long run.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The impact of differences in air temperature and precipitation trends projected by Regional Climate Models (RCMs) or Global Circulation Models (GCMs) on the runoff regime of glacierized catchments was addressed in different regions (e.g., Stahl et al, 2008;Farinotti et al, 2012;Lutz et al, 2013;Ragettli et al, 2013). Dedicated studies have investigated the effect of climate model data downscaling procedures on calculated glacier mass balance (e.g., Radić and Hock, 2006;Kotlarski et al, 2010;Salzmann et al, 2012), and the field data requirements for an unambiguous calibration of hydrological models (Konz and Seibert, 2010;Schaefli and Huss, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High uncertainty in 21st century runoff projections from glacierized basins

Huss

Zemp

Joerg

et al. 2014

Journal of Hydrology

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Glacier response to a changing climate and its impact on runoff is understood in general terms, but model-based projections are affected by considerable uncertainties. They originate from the driving climate model, input data quality, and simplifications in the glacio-hydrological model and hamper the reliability of the simulations. Here, an integrative assessment of the uncertainty in 21st century glacier runoff is provided based on experiments using the Glacier Evolution Runoff Model (GERM) applied to the catchment of Findelengletscher, Switzerland. GERM is calibrated and validated in a multi-objective approach and is run using nine Regional Climate Models (RCMs) until 2100. Among others, the hydrological impacts of the RCM downscaling procedure, the winter snow accumulation, the surface albedo and the calculation of ice melt and glacier retreat are investigated. All experiments indicate rapid glacier wastage and a transient runoff increase followed by reduced melt season discharge. However, major uncertainties in, e.g., glacier area loss (À100% to À63%) and the change in annual runoff (À57% to +25% relative to today) by 2100 are found. The impact of model assumptions on changes in August runoff is even higher (À94% to À5%). The spread in RCM results accounts for 20-50% of the overall uncertainty in modeled discharge. Initial ice thickness, the amount and spatial distribution of winter snow and the glacier retreat model have the largest effect on the projections, whereas the RCM downscaling procedure, calibration data quality and the melt model (energy balance vs. degree-day approach) are of secondary importance.

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“…A variety of conceptual runoff models were used by many different authors in glacierized catchments (e.g. Hock, 2003;Verbunt et al, 2003;Schaefli et al, 2005;Juen et al, 2007;Konz et al, 2007;Koboltschnig et al, 2008), also in combination with glacier area development based on area-volume scaling (Stahl et al, 2008) or by parameterizations using ice thickness change patterns . In high elevations, where a comparable big fraction of runoff is formed by snow-and ice-melt, conceptual degree-day models have the advantage that melt can be described much more easily than precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Glacier and runoff changes in the Rukhk catchment, upper Amu-Darya basin until 2050

Hagg

Hoelzle

Wagner³

et al. 2013

Global and Planetary Change

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A conceptual hydrological model was set up in the upper Panj catchment, the main tributary of Amu-Darya river. After a manual calibration procedure involving model runs with different restrictions, the model reproduced both daily hydrographs of Tanimas river at the Rukhk gauging station (NSE = 0.86) and the snow water equivalent of the Irkht station (R 2 = 0.85) in a very satisfactory way. Based on two glacier inventories from the mid-20th century (WGI, World Glacier Inventory) and from 2003 (GLIMS, Global Land Ice Measurements from Space), a simple parameterization scheme based on steady state conditions was applied to infer the ice volumes and glacier areas for these different time periods. Assuming temperature rises of 2.2°C and 3.1°C, which mark the extreme values of regional climate scenarios, the same method was used to extrapolate glacierization to the year 2050. The results show that these temperature rises will reduce the current glacier extent of 431 km 2 by 36% and 45%, respectively. To assess future changes in water availability, the hydrological model input was modified according to the regional climate scenarios and the resulting glacier changes. The use of an elevation distributed deglacierization pattern is a clear improvement over methods used previously, where the impact on runoff was tested by excluding either the lower half or the total glacier area. The runoff scenarios reveal only a slight reduction in annual runoff, because the glacier area decrease is almost balanced out by enhanced melt rates. However, there is an important seasonal shift of water resources from summer to spring, unfavorably affecting agriculture and irrigation in the lowlands.

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Coupled modelling of glacier and streamflow response to future climate scenarios

Cited by 232 publications

References 39 publications

Future high-mountain hydrology: a new parameterization of glacier retreat

Future high-mountain hydrology: a new parameterization of glacier retreat

High uncertainty in 21st century runoff projections from glacierized basins

Glacier and runoff changes in the Rukhk catchment, upper Amu-Darya basin until 2050

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