Testing  the  consistency  between  changes  in  simulated  climate  and 
Alpine glacier 
length over the past millennium

Goosse, Hugues; Barriat, Pierre-Yves; Dalaiden, Quentin; Klein, François; Marzeion, Ben; Maussion, Fabien; Pelucchi, Paolo; Vlug, Anouk

doi:10.5194/cp-2018-48

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…In general, our results indicate that the differences in projected volume and area changes from the various RCM chains (for a given RCP) are much larger than differences obtained from model parameters. This is in agreement with other glacier evolution studies, as for instance highlighted by Goosse et al (2018) on the centennial glacier length fluctuation modelling of an ensemble of alpine glaciers with OGGM, and by Marzeion et al (2012), who also find that the ensemble spread within 25 each RCP is the biggest source of uncertainty for the modelled future mass changes.…”

Section: Glacier Cross Section 10supporting

confidence: 92%

Modelling the future evolution of glaciers in the European Alps under the EURO-CORDEX RCM ensemble

Zekollari¹,

Huss²,

Farinotti³

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. Glaciers in the European Alps play an important role in the hydrological cycle, act as a source for hydroelectricity and have a large touristic importance. The future evolution of these glaciers is driven by surface mass balance and ice flow processes, which the latter is to date not included in regional glacier projections for the Alps. Here, we model the future evolution of glaciers in the European Alps with GloGEMflow, an extended version of the Global Glacier Evolution Model (GloGEM), in which both surface mass balance and ice flow are explicitly accounted for. The mass balance model is calibrated with glacier-specific geodetic mass balances, and forced with high-resolution regional climate model (RCM) simulations from the EURO-CORDEX ensemble. The evolution of the total glacier volume in the coming decades is relatively similar under the various representative concentrations pathways (RCP2.6, 4.5 and 8.5), with volume losses of about 47–52 % in 2050 with respect to 2017. We find that under RCP2.6, the ice loss in the second part of the 21st century is relatively limited and that about one-third (36.8 % ± 11.1 %) of the present-day (2017) ice volume will still present in 2100. Under a strong warming (RCP8.5) the future evolution of the glaciers is dictated by a substantial increase in surface melt, and glaciers are projected to largely disappear by 2100 (94.4 ± 4.4 % volume loss vs. 2017). For a given RCP, differences in future changes are mainly determined by the driving global climate model, rather than by the RCM that is coupled to it, and these differences are larger than those arising from various model parameters. We find that under a limited warming, the inclusion of ice dynamics reduces the projected mass loss and that this effect increases with the glacier elevation range, implying that the inclusion of ice dynamics is likely to be important for global glacier evolution projections.

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Section: Glacier Cross Section 10supporting

confidence: 92%

Modelling the future evolution of glaciers in the European Alps under the EURO-CORDEX RCM ensemble

Zekollari¹,

Huss²,

Farinotti³

2018

Preprint

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“…Looking at documentary sources and data in literature, in the last four decades, only during the winters of 1984–1985 and 1985–1986 there was generous snow, but they are far from past memorable winters, such as 1869–1870, 1872–1873, 1884–1885, 1896–1897, 1889–1890, 1893–1894, 1904–1905, 1905–1906, 1916–1917 and 1928–1929, when the mean snowfall was equal to 137 ± 29 cm. The LIA ended with this period of sharp reversal, during which the Alpine glacier fronts undertook their retreat inexorably, towards withdrawing at high altitudes up to disappear in some cases (e.g., Huss et al ., 2008; Lüthi, 2014; Goosse et al ., 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, our work also highlights a substantial decrease of snow depth from the beginning of major warming. This finding is supported by both instrumental snowfall records over the last four decades in Italy (e.g., Diodato et al ., 2018) and the analysis of Alpine glacier fronts retreat data (e.g., Huss et al ., 2008; Lüthi, 2014; Goosse et al ., 2018). Forth, beyond the climatic changes occurred over time, we document urban heat island (UHI) effects though records of snow permanence at ground only started in 1937.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New insights into the world's longest series of monthly snowfall (Parma, Northern Italy, 1777–2018)

Diodato¹,

Bertolin

Bellocchi

et al. 2020

Intl Journal of Climatology

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The emergence of decreasing trends in snowfall frequency and snow depth highlights the challenges arising from shifts in snow regimes. In particular, snow-dependent southern Europe regions may be negatively impacted by such changes. Snow regimes strongly influence the water availability in reservoirs and groundwater. This study presents the world's longest series of monthly snowfall (fresh snow depth, snow days per year, days with snow on the ground) for the Parma Observatory, northern Italy (44 48 0 N and 10 19 0 E) between 1777 and 2018. These datasets were collected over the centuries using early rain gauges and recently, SIAP tipping bucket models. Sources of inhomogeneity were identified and analysed through the study of metadata and of nonparametric tests on datasets. Homogenized time series were obtained after correcting the observed snowfall data for the instruments response and localization characteristics, for the observing practices with the help of the standard normal homogeneity tests. The Buishand and the Mann-Kendall tests were further applied to check the correction and detect possible monotonic trends. Over the study period, days per year of snow decreased after the change point detected in 1897, in association with a rise in surface air temperature (including a distinct urban warming trend). In this study high numbers of snowy days per year (hereafter referred as snowfall frequency) and snow depth values during the latest phase of the LIA at Parma are consistent with a cycle of minimum solar activity, suggesting that enhanced, solar-induced blocking activity dominated, with the arrival into the Mediterranean of large cold air masses developing over Siberia and northern Europe. Over the last century, snow appears to have resonance-like characteristics as similar trends were observed over the Northern Hemisphere, where the extent of the snow cover has been reported to markedly decline in the transition spring and autumn seasons.

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“…Some IDGES have reconstructed past climatic conditions over multi-millennial timescales, but several applications at decadal to centennial time scales also exist (Table 1, refs 84). Large-scale modeling efforts have also aimed to extract past climatic information from glacier simulations (e.g., Goosse et al, 2018;Parkes & Goosse, 2020), and such studies will directly benefit from future insights obtained from IDGES on individual glaciers (see also Section 7.2.1).…”

Section: Glaciers As Climate Change Indicators and Their Time-lagged ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ice‐Dynamical Glacier Evolution Modeling—A Review

Zekollari

Huss

Farinotti

et al. 2022

Reviews of Geophysics

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Glaciers play a crucial role in the Earth System: they are important water suppliers to lower‐lying areas during hot and dry periods, and they are major contributors to the observed present‐day sea‐level rise. Glaciers can also act as a source of natural hazards and have a major touristic value. Given their societal importance, there is large scientific interest in better understanding and accurately simulating the temporal evolution of glaciers, both in the past and in the future. Here, we give an overview of the state of the art of simulating the evolution of individual glaciers over decadal to centennial time scales with ice‐dynamical models. We hereby highlight recent advances in the field and emphasize how these go hand‐in‐hand with an increasing availability of on‐site and remotely sensed observations. We also focus on the gap between simplified studies that use parameterizations, typically used for regional and global projections, and detailed assessments for individual glaciers, and explain how recent advances now allow including ice dynamics when modeling glaciers at larger spatial scales. Finally, we provide concrete recommendations concerning the steps and factors to be considered when modeling the evolution of glaciers. We suggest paying particular attention to the model initialization, analyzing how related uncertainties in model input influence the modeled glacier evolution and strongly recommend evaluating the simulated glacier evolution against independent data.

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Testing the consistency between changes in simulated climate and Alpine glacier length over the past millennium

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Modelling the future evolution of glaciers in the European Alps under the EURO-CORDEX RCM ensemble

Modelling the future evolution of glaciers in the European Alps under the EURO-CORDEX RCM ensemble

New insights into the world's longest series of monthly snowfall (Parma, Northern Italy, 1777–2018)

Ice‐Dynamical Glacier Evolution Modeling—A Review

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