Climatic Forcing of Glacier Surface Mass Balance Changes Along North-Central Peru: A Modeling Perspective

Abstract:

Most tropical glaciers are Peru, where they are key water sources for communities in mountain environments and beyond. Thus, their sustained shrinkage portrays these glaciers as archetype of global warming impacts on the local scale. However, there is still no deep understanding on the mechanism connecting temperature and these glaciers. Among others, the effect of temperature on the glacier surface mass balance (GSMB) can be expressed within accumulation regimes and hence in surface albedo, or in ablation dynamics through incoming longwave energy (LE). Here, we report a study combining statistical analyses of reanalysis data (~30km grid-cell), regional climate modeling and glacier mass balance simulations at high resolution (2km) to analyze long-term (30 years) and seasonal GSMB along north-central Peru. Our goal is to mechanistically understand climate change impact on these glaciers. Results suggest temperature as the main factor controlling GSMB changes through the lapse rate (LR). Correlations of GSMB with LR, humidity and zonal wind point to vertical homogenization of temperature, causing LE to increase, despite this flux always remaining negative. This “less negative” LE multiplies the impact of the seasonal fluctuation in albedo, thereby enhancing total ablation. As this mechanism only needs a relative increase in temperature, it may even occur in subfreezing conditions. Model output also indicates that turbulent fluxes are small, largely cancelling out. This suggests that the impact of LE is more likely to occur compared to either turbulent fluxes changes or shifts in the proportion of sublimation versus melt, which we find to be regionally stable. These findings imply that glaciers in north-central Peru are sensitive to subtle changes in temperature. We discuss the implications for process-based understanding and how this non-linear and somewhat hidden effect of temperature reduces the skill of temperature index models to simulate GSMB in the Tropics.