Effects of local advection on the spatial sensible heat flux variation on a mountain glacier

Sauter, Tobias; Galos, Stephan Peter

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2887-2016

Articles | Volume 10, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2887-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2887-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 6

Research article

|

24 Nov 2016

Research article |

| 24 Nov 2016

Effects of local advection on the spatial sensible heat flux variation on a mountain glacier

Tobias Sauter and Stephan Peter Galos

Data sets

OpenCFD Ltd CFD software OpenFOAM http://www.openfoam.com

Adding complex terrain and stable atmospheric condition capability to the OpenFOAM-based flow solver of the simulator for on/offshore wind farm applications (SOWFA) M. J. Churchfield, S. Lee, and P. J. Moriarty https://github.com/NREL/SOWFA

Short summary

The paper deals with the micrometeorological conditions on mountain glaciers. We use idealized large-eddy simulations to study the heat transport associated with the local wind systems and its impact on the energy exchange between atmosphere and glaciers. Our results demonstrate how the sensible heat flux variablility on glaciers is related to topographic effects and that the energy surplus is strong enough to significantly increase the local glacier melting rates.