Modeling of Mass Balance Variability and Its Impact on Water Discharge from the Urumqi Glacier No. 1 Catchment, Tian Shan, China

Thiel, Kira; Arndt, Anselm; Wang, Puyu; Li, Huilin; Li, Zhongqin; Schneider, Christoph

doi:10.3390/w12123297

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 96 publications

(141 reference statements)

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“…However, as confirmed by the comparison of the simulated climatic mass balance for Fürkeleferner with the climatic mass balance of other glaciers of the wider study area (Figure 11), COSIPY is able to simulate a realistic climatic mass balance. This Frontiers in Earth Science frontiersin.org is in agreement with studies using COSIPY in other regions of the world (Sauter et al, 2020;Thiel et al, 2020;Arndt et al, 2021).…”

Section: Model Uncertainties and Approximationssupporting

confidence: 90%

Energy and glacier mass balance of Fürkeleferner, Italy: past, present, and future

2022

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The energy and mass balance of mountain glaciers translate into volume changes that play out as area changes over time. From this, together with former moraines during maximum advances, information on past climate conditions and the climatic drivers behind during glacier advances can be obtained. Here, we use the distributed COupled Snowpack and Ice surface energy and mass balance model in PYthon (COSIPY) to simulate the present state of an Italian glacier, named Fürkeleferner, for the mass balance years 2013–2017. Next, we investigate the local climate during the time of the last “Little Ice Age” (LIA) maximum glacier advance using COSIPY together with the LIA glacier outline retrieved from moraine mapping and a digital elevation model (DEM) adapted for the glacier’s geometry at the time of the LIA as a benchmark. Furthermore, the glacier’s sensitivity to future air temperature increase of +1 K and +2 K is investigated using the same model. For all simulations, meteorological data of closely located climate stations are used to force the model. We show the individual monthly contribution of individual energy and mass balance components. Refreezing during the summer months is an important component of the energy and mass balance, on average about 9 % relative to total annual ablation. The results from simulating past climate show a 2.8 times larger glacier area for Fürkeleferner during the LIA than today. This further implies a 2.5 K colder climate, assuming that the amount of precipitation was 10 %–20 % in excess of today’s value. Concerning further temperature increase of 2 K, the glacier would only consist of the ablation area implying sustained mass loss and eventual total mass loss. Even under current climatic conditions, the glacier area would have to decrease to 17 % of its current area to be in a steady state. We discuss the reliability of the results by comparing simulated present mass balance to measured mass balances of neighboring glaciers in the European Alps and with short-term measurements on Fürkeleferner itself. In conclusion, we are able to show how the glacier responds to past and future climate change and determine the climatic drivers behind.

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Section: Model Uncertainties and Approximationssupporting

confidence: 90%

Energy and glacier mass balance of Fürkeleferner, Italy: past, present, and future

2022

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“…Further, the surface wind from ERA5-L represents the grid cell's average wind (personal communication with ECMWF-Support, on 20 November 2018). Based on the experience from previous studies (Thiel and others, 2020;Arndt and others, 2021) we apply a constant scaling factor of two for all glaciers and no interpolation to the GGPs. Furthermore, no lapse rate is applied to TP resulting in the same amount of TP for each GGP.…”

Section: Atmospheric Input Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial pattern of glacier mass balance sensitivity to atmospheric forcing in High Mountain Asia

Arndt,

Schneider

2023

J. Glaciol.

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The complex topography and size of High Mountain Asia (HMA) result in large differences in glacier mass-balance variability and climate sensitivity. Current understanding of these sensitivities is limited by simplifications in past studies’ model structure. This study overcomes this limitation by using a mass-balance model to investigate the climatic mass-balance variability and climate sensitivity of 16 glaciers covering major mountain ranges in HMA. Generally, glaciers in the southeast have higher mass turnover while glaciers at the margins of HMA show higher interannual mass-balance variability. All glaciers are most sensitive to temperature perturbations in summer. The climatic mass balance of 15 glaciers is most sensitive to precipitation perturbations in summer or spring and summer, even if the seasonal accumulation peak is not in summer. Only one glacier's mass balance (Chhota Shigri Glacier) is most sensitive to precipitation perturbations in winter. Glaciers with high mass turnover and high summer-precipitation ratio are more sensitive to temperature perturbations. Sensitivity experiments reveal that besides the non-linearity of mass-balance temperature sensitivity, mass-balance precipitation sensitivity is non-linear as well. Furthermore, resolving the diurnal cycle of albedo, (re)freezing and the differentiation between liquid and solid precipitation are important to assess climate sensitivity of glaciers in HMA.

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“…Glaciers are an important part of the cryosphere as well as global and local water resource budgets [1,2]. Movement is one of the main signs that distinguish glaciers from other natural ice in the cryosphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrieving and Verifying Three-Dimensional Surface Motion Displacement of Mountain Glacier from Sentinel-1 Imagery Using Optimized Method

Wang

Jun

et al. 2021

Water

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The time series study of glacier movement is of special importance for rational management of freshwater resources, studying glacier evolution, understanding mechanism of glacier movement, and assessing disasters caused by glacier movement. In this paper, we put forward an optimization scheme for the shortcomings in the calculation method of using remote sensing to invert the three-dimensional (3D) surface motion displacement of glacier. The optimized method consists of Offset Tracking method, Optimizing the offset tracking results by means of iterative filtering, OT-SBAS technology and Conversion of 3D surface motion displacement of glacier. The Urumqi Glacier No. 1 was selected to test the optimized method. The 3D surface motion displacement of Urumqi Glacier No. 1 was retrieved by using the optimized method based on the ascending and descending Sentinel-1 datasets from 19 April to 29 August 2018. The distribution of 3D surface velocity of the Urumqi Glacier No. 1 was obtained in time series, and the accuracy of the inversion results was evaluated by using the field measurement data. The results show that the accuracies of the inverted displacements of east branch of Urumqi Glacier No. 1 (UG1E) were about 0.062, 0.063, and 0.152 m in the east, north and vertical directions, and these values for the west branch (UG1W) were 0.015, 0.020 and 0.026 m, respectively. It is indicated that using Sentinel-1 ascending and descending data and using the optimized method to retrieve the 3D surface motion displacement of glacier should satisfy the requirements of inversing the 3D surface motion displacement of high-latitude mountain glaciers in China.

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Modeling of Mass Balance Variability and Its Impact on Water Discharge from the Urumqi Glacier No. 1 Catchment, Tian Shan, China

Cited by 6 publications

References 96 publications

Energy and glacier mass balance of Fürkeleferner, Italy: past, present, and future

Energy and glacier mass balance of Fürkeleferner, Italy: past, present, and future

Spatial pattern of glacier mass balance sensitivity to atmospheric forcing in High Mountain Asia

Retrieving and Verifying Three-Dimensional Surface Motion Displacement of Mountain Glacier from Sentinel-1 Imagery Using Optimized Method

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