Articles | Volume 19, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3443-2025
© Author(s) 2025. 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-19-3443-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
03 Sep 2025
Research article |
| 03 Sep 2025
| 03 Sep 2025
Reconstruction of mass balance and firn stratigraphy during the 1996–2011 warm period at high altitude on Mount Ortles, Eastern Alps: a comparison of modelled and ice core results
Luca Carturan
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Legnaro, Italy
Alexander C. Ihle
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
Department of Geography and Byrd Polar and Climate Research Institute, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
Federico Cazorzi
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy
Tiziana Lazzarina Zendrini
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Legnaro, Italy
Fabrizio De Blasi
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Legnaro, Italy
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto di Scienze Polari, c/o Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy
Giancarlo Dalla Fontana
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Legnaro, Italy
Giuliano Dreossi
Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy
Daniela Festi
GeoSphere Austria, Department of Geoanalytics and Reference Collections, Vienna, Austria
Bryan Mark
Department of Geography and Byrd Polar and Climate Research Institute, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
Klaus Dieter Oeggl
Department of Botany, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
Roberto Seppi
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
Barbara Stenni
Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy
Paolo Gabrielli
Italian Glaciological Committee, Turin, Italy
Data sets
Mass balance, stable isotopes and pollen data from 1997 to 2014 on Mt. Ortles (Eastern European Alps) L. Carturan https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15669721
Short summary
Paleoclimatic glacial archives in low-latitude mountains are increasingly affected by melt, causing heavy percolation and removing snow and firn accumulated across months, seasons, or even years. Here we present a proxy system model that explicitly accounts for melt in ice and firn cores. Compared to traditional annual layer counting, the model significantly improved the interpretation and annual dating of the Mt Ortles firn core, in the Italian Alps, which includes the very warm summer of 2003.
Paleoclimatic glacial archives in low-latitude mountains are increasingly affected by melt,...
