On the Imbalance and Response Time of Glaciers in the European Alps

On the Imbalance and Response Time of Glaciers in the European Alps

Zekollari, H. (TU Delft Mathematical Geodesy and Positioning; ETH Zürich; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research; Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Huss, Matthias (ETH Zürich; University of Fribourg; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research)
Farinotti, Daniel (ETH Zürich; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research)

2020

Glaciers in the European Alps rapidly lose mass to adapt to changes in climate conditions. Here, we investigate the relationship and lag between climate forcing and geometric glacier response with a regional glacier evolution model accounting for ice dynamics. The volume loss occurring as a result of the glacier-climate imbalance increased over the early 21st century, from about 35% in 2001 to 44% in 2010. This committed loss reduced to ~40% by 2018, indicating that temperature increase was outweighing glacier retreat in the early 2000s but that the fast retreat effectively somewhat diminished glacier imbalances. We analyze the lag in glacier response for each individual glacier and find mean response times of 50 ± 28 years. Our findings indicate that the response time is primarily controlled by glacier slope and secondarily by elevation range and mass balance gradient, rather than by glacier size.

alps
climate change
dynamics
glacier
response time

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6594a476-7b65-416b-abfe-27ffda4e2354

https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085578

0094-8276

Geophysical Research Letters, 47 (2)

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2020 H. Zekollari, Matthias Huss, Daniel Farinotti