Analysis of the mass balance time series of glaciers in the Italian Alps

Carturan, Luca; Baroni, Carlo; Brunetti, Michele; Carton, Alberto; Fontana, Giancarlo Dalla; Salvatore, María Cristina; Zanoner, Thomas; Zuecco, Giulia

doi:10.5194/tc-10-695-2016

Cited by 26 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The decrease in extreme snowfall rates is less clear, except for low elevations where the influence of increasing air temperature is predominant (Marty and Blanchet, 2012). Studies related to past changes in snow avalanche activity are scarce as well, but observations indicate that over the last decades (a) the number of days with prerequisites for avalanches in forests decreased (Teich et al, 2012), (b) the proportion of wet snow avalanches increased (Pielmeier et al, 2013), and (c) the runout altitude of large avalanches retreated upslope (Eckert et al, 2010(Eckert et al, , 2013Corona et al, 2013) as a direct consequence of changes in snow cover characteristics (Castebrunet et al, 2012).…”

Section: Observed Changes Of the Snow Covermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Periods with positive surface mass balance have, however, occurred intermittently, notably from the 1960s to the mid-1980s in the Alps and in the 1990s and 2000s for maritime glaciers in Norway (Zemp et al, 2015;Andreassen et al, 2016). Glacier area loss has led to the disintegration of many glaciers, which has also affected the observational network (e.g., Zemp et al, 2009;Carturan et al, 2016). In the more southerly parts of Europe, glacier retreat in Pyrenees has accelerated since the 1980s and the small glaciers Table 2.…”

Section: Observed Changes In Glaciersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The European mountain cryosphere: a review of its current state, trends, and future challenges

et al. 2018

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Abstract. The mountain cryosphere of mainland Europe is recognized to have important impacts on a range of environmental processes. In this paper, we provide an overview on the current knowledge on snow, glacier, and permafrost processes, as well as their past, current, and future evolution. We additionally provide an assessment of current cryosphere research in Europe and point to the different domains requiring further research. Emphasis is given to our understanding of climate–cryosphere interactions, cryosphere controls on physical and biological mountain systems, and related impacts. By the end of the century, Europe's mountain cryosphere will have changed to an extent that will impact the landscape, the hydrological regimes, the water resources, and the infrastructure. The impacts will not remain confined to the mountain area but also affect the downstream lowlands, entailing a wide range of socioeconomical consequences. European mountains will have a completely different visual appearance, in which low- and mid-range-altitude glaciers will have disappeared and even large valley glaciers will have experienced significant retreat and mass loss. Due to increased air temperatures and related shifts from solid to liquid precipitation, seasonal snow lines will be found at much higher altitudes, and the snow season will be much shorter than today. These changes in snow and ice melt will cause a shift in the timing of discharge maxima, as well as a transition of runoff regimes from glacial to nival and from nival to pluvial. This will entail significant impacts on the seasonality of high-altitude water availability, with consequences for water storage and management in reservoirs for drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower production. Whereas an upward shift of the tree line and expansion of vegetation can be expected into current periglacial areas, the disappearance of permafrost at lower altitudes and its warming at higher elevations will likely result in mass movements and process chains beyond historical experience. Future cryospheric research has the responsibility not only to foster awareness of these expected changes and to develop targeted strategies to precisely quantify their magnitude and rate of occurrence but also to help in the development of approaches to adapt to these changes and to mitigate their consequences. Major joint efforts are required in the domain of cryospheric monitoring, which will require coordination in terms of data availability and quality. In particular, we recognize the quantification of high-altitude precipitation as a key source of uncertainty in projections of future changes. Improvements in numerical modeling and a better understanding of process chains affecting high-altitude mass movements are the two further fields that – in our view – future cryospheric research should focus on.

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Section: Observed Changes Of the Snow Covermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Observed Changes In Glaciersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The European mountain cryosphere: a review of its current state, trends, and future challenges

et al. 2018

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“…Mass balance observations on numerous glaciers located in different mountain ranges have been successfully used to assess climate change effects on glaciers in various climatic regimes [e.g., Kaser et al ., ; Gardner et al ., ; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , ]. However, the spatial representativeness of the series used in these studies is difficult to assess [ Gardner et al ., ; Carturan et al ., ]. Indeed, mass balance measurements are only available for 440 glaciers of the more than 200,000 mountain glaciers worldwide [ World Glacier Monitoring Service ( WGMS ), ; Zemp et al ., 2015].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common climatic signal from glaciers in the European Alps over the last 50 years

Vincent

Fischer

Mayer

et al. 2017

Geophysical Research Letters

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Conventional glacier‐wide mass balances are commonly used to study the effect of climate forcing on glacier melt. Unfortunately, the glacier‐wide mass balances are also influenced by the glacier's dynamic response. Investigations on the effects of climate forcing on glaciers can be largely improved by analyzing point mass balances. Using a statistical model, we have found that 52% of the year‐to‐year deviations in the point mass balances of six glaciers distributed across the entire European Alps can be attributed to a common variability. Point mass balance changes reveal remarkable regional consistencies reaching 80% for glaciers less than 10 km apart. Compared to the steady state conditions of the 1962–1982 period, the surface mass balance changes are −0.85 m water equivalent (w.e.) a−1 for 1983–2002 and −1.63 m w.e. a−1 for 2003–2013. This indicates a clear and regionally consistent acceleration of mass loss over recent decades over the entire European Alps.

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“…These glaciers were also selected because they represent two presently monitored glaciers with annual mass balance data useful to compare with our palaeoglacier reconstructions. Finally, we wanted to investigate the responses of two neighbouring glaciers to the same past climate input that today present such dissimilar characteristics, as they both reacted differently to climate fluctuations of the last century (Carturan et al 2013b(Carturan et al , 2014(Carturan et al , 2016Salvatore et al 2015;Zanoner et al 2017). The La Mare 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Double response of glaciers in the Upper Peio Valley (Rhaetian Alps, Italy) to the Younger Dryas climatic deterioration

Baroni

Casale

Salvatore

et al. 2017

Boreas

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A pronounced climate reorganization characterized the Lateglacial–Holocene transition in the Northern Hemisphere. Glaciers in the Alps reacted to the last climate deterioration at the end of the Late Pleistocene leaving landscape features suitable for reconstructing Lateglacial and early Holocene history. In this context, the Upper Peio Valley in the Ortles-Cevedale Group (Rhaetian Alps, Italy) has well-preserved moraines of La Mare Glacier and Careser Glacier, which we used to reconstruct the glaciers' behaviour and to investigate the Lateglacial–Holocene transition. Detailed glacier reconstructions combined with 11 new 10Be exposure ages allow dating of the response of these glaciers to the Younger Dryas (YD) cold event. La Mare and Careser glaciers reacted to the YD with a double response, building two clear moraine sets. Data from La Mare Glacier indicate the first advance occurred prior to 12.3±0.7 ka (before 10.0±0.7 ka at Careser Glacier). Both glaciers then re-advanced before 11.2±0.8 ka as dated at La Mare Glacier. This phase can be interpreted as the Egesen stadial glaciers' expression of the end of the YD. Morphometric parameters of the reconstructed phases allowed the estimation of areal and volumetric variations of the studied glaciers as well as equilibrium line altitude (ELA). ΔELA with respect to the Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum position are −225 m for La Mare Glacier and −180 m for the Careser Glacier. Although the behaviour of the two glaciers showed coherence during the Egesen stadial and the LIA, they have behaved individually since then. La Mare has lost 60% of its area, while Careser has lost 85% since the latest Pleistocene. We attribute this to the greater proportion of ice at high elevation of the La Mare Glacier, underlining the importance of bed hypsometry in glacier response

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Analysis of the mass balance time series of glaciers in the Italian Alps

Cited by 26 publications

References 53 publications

The European mountain cryosphere: a review of its current state, trends, and future challenges

The European mountain cryosphere: a review of its current state, trends, and future challenges

Common climatic signal from glaciers in the European Alps over the last 50 years

Double response of glaciers in the Upper Peio Valley (Rhaetian Alps, Italy) to the Younger Dryas climatic deterioration

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