Articles | Volume 15, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-595-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-595-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
09 Feb 2021
Research article |
| 09 Feb 2021
| 09 Feb 2021
Distributed summer air temperatures across mountain glaciers in the south-east Tibetan Plateau: temperature sensitivity and comparison with existing glacier datasets
Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL),
Birmensdorf, Switzerland
Wei Yang
Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface
Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China
CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing
100101, China
Álvaro Ayala
Centre for Advanced Studies in Arid Zones (CEAZA), La Serena, Chile
Claudio Bravo
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Chuanxi Zhao
Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface
Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China
Francesca Pellicciotti
Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL),
Birmensdorf, Switzerland
Department of Geography, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK
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The climate in Svalbard is undergoing amplified change compared to the global mean, which has a strong impact on the climatic mass balance of glaciers and the state of seasonal snow in land areas. In this study we analyze a coupled energy balance–subsurface model dataset, which provides detailed information on distributed climatic mass balance, snow conditions, and runoff across Svalbard between 1957 and 2018.
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Short summary
Near surface air temperature (Ta) is important for simulating the melting of glaciers, though its variability in space and time on mountain glaciers is still poorly understood. We combine new Ta observations on glacier in Tibet with several glacier datasets around the world to explore the applicability of an existing method to estimate glacier Ta based upon glacier flow distance. We make a first step at generalising a method and highlight the remaining unknowns for this field of research.
Near surface air temperature (Ta) is important for simulating the melting of glaciers, though...
