Articles | Volume 20, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1339-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1339-2026
Research article
 | 
25 Feb 2026
Research article |  | 25 Feb 2026

CMIP6 climate model spread outweighs glacier model spread in 21st-century drought buffering projections

Lizz Ultee, Finn Wimberly, Sloan Coats, Jonathan Mackay, and Erik Holmgren

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Cited articles

Adhikari, R. K., Yilmaz, A. G., Mainali, B., and Dyson, P.: Performance evaluation of CMIP6 models for application to hydrological modelling studies – A case study of Australia, Science of The Total Environment, 945, 174 015, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.174015, 2024. a
Aguayo, R., Maussion, F., Schuster, L., Schaefer, M., Caro, A., Schmitt, P., Mackay, J., Ultee, L., Leon-Muñoz, J., and Aguayo, M.: Unravelling the sources of uncertainty in glacier runoff projections in the Patagonian Andes (40–56° S), The Cryosphere, 18, 5383–5406, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5383-2024, 2024. a, b, c, d, e, f
Ault, T. R.: On the essentials of drought in a changing climate, Science, 368, 256–260, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz5492, 2020. a, b
Azad, N. and Ahmadi, A.: Assessment of CMIP6 models and multi-model averaging for temperature and precipitation over Iran, Scientific Reports, 14, 24165, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-74789-4, 2024. a
Caretta, M. A., Mukherji, A., Arfanuzzaman, M., Betts, R. A., Gelfan, A., Hirabayashi, Y., Lissner, T. K., Liu, J., Gunn, E. L., Morgan, R., Mwanga, S., and Supratid, S.: Water, in: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E., Mintenbeck, K., Alegría, A., Craig, M., Langsdorf, S., Löschke, S., Möller, V., Okem, A., and Rama, B., 551–712, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844.006, 2022. a, b
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Short summary
Runoff from glaciers can be an important water source in mountain regions. Global climate models used to understand future changes in the water cycle do not include glacier changes. We simulated glacier change in all available glacier models using information from global climate models as input. We found that for analysis of future drought, it is more important to understand the climate input than to use all available glacier models together.
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