Global glacier mass balance modeling – Where to go from here?

Abstract:

Glacier wastage implies substantial economic, societal, and ecological impacts resulting from changes in global sea-level, fresh water availability, and other environmental conditions. Major advances have been made recently in modeling glaciers other than the ice sheets on a global scale, and results indicate substantial future mass losses but the hydrological response varies largely among different regions. The recent globally complete Randolph Glacier Inventory presents a major step forward but global glacier modeling remains challenging due to scarcity of validation data and the omission of processes in the current generation of global models. We investigate pathways to improve model parameter calibration using insitu point mass balance data as well as glacier-wide geodetic balances derived from newly available large-scale topographic data.