scholarly journals Uncertainties and re-analysis of glacier mass balance measurements

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 789-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Zemp ◽  
E. Thibert ◽  
M. Huss ◽  
D. Stumm ◽  
C. Rolstad Denby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Mass Balance ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Error Estimation ◽  
Standard Procedure ◽  
Systematic Errors ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
Uncertainty Estimates

Abstract. Glacier-wide mass balance has been measured for more than sixty years and is widely used as an indicator of climate change and to assess the glacier contribution to runoff and sea level rise. Until present, comprehensive uncertainty assessments have rarely been carried out and mass balance data have often been applied using rough error estimation or without error considerations. In this study, we propose a framework for re-analyzing glacier mass balance series including conceptual and statistical toolsets for assessment of random and systematic errors as well as for validation and calibration (if necessary) of the glaciological with the geodetic balance results. We demonstrate the usefulness and limitations of the proposed scheme drawing on an analysis that comprises over 50 recording periods for a dozen glaciers and we make recommendations to investigators and users of glacier mass balance data. Reanalysis of glacier mass balance series needs to become a standard procedure for every monitoring programme to improve data quality and provide thorough uncertainty estimates.

scholarly journals Reanalysing glacier mass balance measurement series

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1227-1245 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Zemp ◽  
E. Thibert ◽  
M. Huss ◽  
D. Stumm ◽  
C. Rolstad Denby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Mass Balance ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Error Estimation ◽  
Standard Procedure ◽  
Systematic Errors ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
Uncertainty Estimates ◽  
Measurement Series

Abstract. Glacier-wide mass balance has been measured for more than sixty years and is widely used as an indicator of climate change and to assess the glacier contribution to runoff and sea level rise. Until recently, comprehensive uncertainty assessments have rarely been carried out and mass balance data have often been applied using rough error estimation or without consideration of errors. In this study, we propose a framework for reanalysing glacier mass balance series that includes conceptual and statistical toolsets for assessment of random and systematic errors, as well as for validation and calibration (if necessary) of the glaciological with the geodetic balance results. We demonstrate the usefulness and limitations of the proposed scheme, drawing on an analysis that comprises over 50 recording periods for a dozen glaciers, and we make recommendations to investigators and users of glacier mass balance data. Reanalysing glacier mass balance series needs to become a standard procedure for every monitoring programme to improve data quality, including reliable uncertainty estimates.

Qualitative Modeling of Ice Sheet Accumulation for Identification of Mass Balance Variation

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Kirill Khvorostovsky ◽  
Pavel Lunev ◽  
Victoria Shterkhun
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mass Balance ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Qualitative Model ◽  
Qualitative Modeling ◽  
Formation And Evolution ◽  
Methods Of Measurement

Formation and evolution of ice sheets is one of the “hot” problems of modern geosciences, as it has direct implication on the issues of climate change and sea level rise. Different methods of measurement or computing the mass balance of modern ice sheets based on various physical models sometimes give conflicting results. To understand them, one should first reconcile the models they are based on. This, in turn, requires one to decipher the vision different researchers have on the generation and evolution of ice sheets. This vision is initially qualitative. Hence, a qualitative model is desired that would reconcile various, and sometimes conflicting, physical models. This chapter proposes this model.

scholarly journals The High Mountain Asia glacier contribution to sea-level rise from 2000 to 2050

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (71) ◽  
pp. 223-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liyun Zhao ◽  
Ran Ding ◽  
John C. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Mass Balance ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽  
Summer Temperatures

AbstractWe estimate all the individual glacier area and volume changes in High Mountain Asia (HMA) by 2050 based on Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) version 4.0, using different methods of assessing sensitivity to summer temperatures driven by a regional climate model and the IPCC A1B radiative forcing scenario. A large range of sea-level rise variation comes from varying equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) sensitivity to summer temperatures. This sensitivity and also the glacier mass-balance gradients with elevation have the largest coefficients of variability (amounting to ~50%) among factors examined. Prescribing ELA sensitivities from energy-balance models produces the highest sea-level rise (9.2 mm, or 0.76% of glacier volume a–1), while the ELA sensitivities estimated from summer temperatures at Chinese meteorological stations and also from 1°x1° gridded temperatures in the Berkeley Earth database produce 3.6 and 3.8 mm, respectively. Different choices of the initial ELA or summer precipitation lead to 15% uncertainties in modelled glacier volume loss. RGI version 4.0 produces 20% lower sea-level rise than version 2.0. More surface mass-balance observations, meteorological data from the glaciated areas, and detailed satellite altimetry data can provide better estimates of sea-level rise in the future.

Using a CMIP5 multi-model ensemble to model glacier mass balance on decadal scales

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa van der Laan ◽  
Kristian Förster ◽  
Fabien Maussion ◽  
Adam Scaife
Keyword(s):  
Mass Balance ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Decadal Scale ◽  
Model Ensembles ◽  
Decadal Climate

<p>Glaciers fulfil several important roles in the earth system, including being clear indicators of climate change and providing essential freshwater storage and downstream runoff to 22% of the global population. In addition, they are the main contributors to sea level rise and are expected to remain so throughout the 21st Century. In order to monitor glacier development, observing and predicting glacier mass balance on different spatial and temporal scales is essential. The current study aims to improve the understanding of glacier mass balance prediction on the decadal scale (5-15 years), a rarely studied time scale in the context of glaciers, but if reliable, highly applicable for glacier related water resource management and sea level rise predictions. This is achieved through the use of CMIP5 decadal climate prediction multi-model ensembles (reforecasts) to force the mass balance component of the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM). This method is applied to 254 reference glaciers, distributed throughout 17 of the 19 Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) regions. The reforecasts are initialized in 1960 and 1980 and bias corrected to the glacier scale. The following statistical analysis then gives a good indication of the skill of climate reforecasts in mass balance modelling on this glacier atypical time scale.</p>

scholarly journals The ‘benchmark glacier’ concept – does it work? Lessons from the North Cascade Range, USA

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (50) ◽  
pp. 163-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew G. Fountain ◽  
Matthew J. Hoffman ◽  
Frank Granshaw ◽  
Jon Riedel
Keyword(s):  
Mass Balance ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
Alpine Glacier ◽  
Climatic Regions ◽  
The North ◽  
Mass Losses

AbstractBenchmark glaciers were established in many alpine areas during the 1960s as part of the International Hydrological Decade to represent ‘typical’ mass and energy processes on glaciers in different climatic regions around the world. These glaciers have received new interest in the past decade because they are used to infer the contribution of alpine glacier wastage to global sea-level rise. We compare South Cascade Glacier, the benchmark glacier for the northwest contiguous USA, and four other secondary glaciers, against the topographic, area and mass changes of 321 glaciers in the surrounding region. Results show that South Cascade Glacier is unusually large, of lower slope and much larger area and had mass losses greater than most other glaciers in the region. Three of the four secondary glaciers were much more typical. Year-to-year variations in mass balance were highly correlated between all five glaciers, and any of these glaciers, including the benchmark glacier, could be used to infer temporal mass variations in the region. However, the use of South Cascade Glacier to estimate area/mass losses for the region would result in overestimating the area/mass changes by a factor of three. Local differences in the magnitude of annual glacier mass balance control cumulative mass changes and area changes. There appears to be no way to select a representative glacier a priori, and knowledge of changes over the region is required. Therefore, there may be great uncertainty in estimates of sea-level rise from the wastage of alpine glaciers based on the benchmark approach. We recommend re-evaluation of regional glacier mass changes inferred from benchmark glaciers in critical regions.

scholarly journals Economic damages from Hurricane Sandy attributable to sea level rise caused by anthropogenic climate change

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin H. Strauss ◽  
Philip M. Orton ◽  
Klaus Bittermann ◽  
Maya K. Buchanan ◽  
Daniel M. Gilford ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
East Coast ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Economic Damage ◽  
Sea Levels

AbstractIn 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States, creating widespread coastal flooding and over $60 billion in reported economic damage. The potential influence of climate change on the storm itself has been debated, but sea level rise driven by anthropogenic climate change more clearly contributed to damages. To quantify this effect, here we simulate water levels and damage both as they occurred and as they would have occurred across a range of lower sea levels corresponding to different estimates of attributable sea level rise. We find that approximately $8.1B ($4.7B–$14.0B, 5th–95th percentiles) of Sandy’s damages are attributable to climate-mediated anthropogenic sea level rise, as is extension of the flood area to affect 71 (40–131) thousand additional people. The same general approach demonstrated here may be applied to impact assessments for other past and future coastal storms.

scholarly journals Impact Assessment Analysis of Sea Level Rise in Denmark: A Case Study of Falster Island, Guldborgsund

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7503
Author(s):  
Alexander Boest-Petersen ◽  
Piotr Michalak ◽  
Jamal Jokar Arsanjani
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Projection Data ◽  
Storm Events ◽  
Cascading Effects ◽  
Local Levels

Anthropogenically-induced climate change is expected to be the contributing cause of sea level rise and severe storm events in the immediate future. While Danish authorities have downscaled the future oscillation of sea level rise across Danish coast lines in order to empower the coastal municipalities, there is a need to project the local cascading effects on different sectors. Using geospatial analysis and climate change projection data, we developed a proposed workflow to analyze the impacts of sea level rise in the coastal municipalities of Guldborgsund, located in Southeastern Denmark as a case study. With current estimates of sea level rise and storm surge events, the island of Falster can expect to have up to 19% of its landmass inundated, with approximately 39% of the population experiencing sea level rise directly. Developing an analytical workflow can allow stakeholders to understand the extent of expected sea level rise and consider alternative methods of prevention at the national and local levels. The proposed approach along with the choice of data and open source tools can empower other communities at risk of sea level rise to plan their adaptation.

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