A reconstruction of annual mass balances of Austria’s glaciers from 1969 to 1998

Abstract

AbstractAnnual glacier mass balances are reconstructed for 96% of the Austrian glacier-covered area (451 of 470 km2) between 1969 and 1998. The volume change derived from two complete glacier inventories (1969 and 1998) serves as the boundary condition that is aimed to be reproduced. ERA-40 reanalysis data as well as a gridded precipitation dataset (HISTALP) are used to drive a positive degree-day (PDD) model. The results are verified with four independent long-term mass-balance series. The spatial and vertical distribution of the tuning parameters is altered in order to reproduce the measured mean annual surface mass balances of selected glaciers, and a strong correlation is found between the median elevation of a glacier and the degree-day factor (DDF) at this elevation. This result implies that the lower a glacier’s median elevation is, the less melt occurs at a given elevation and temperature. We attribute this to the fact that lower-altitude glaciers are generally those with more accumulation, which leads to later exposure of bare ice and a longer period of high-albedo snow cover. A further improvement of the model was achieved by making DDF a function of time as well as space. The results indicate that mean DDFs generally increase for a given date over a sequence of consecutive negative mass-balance years, which probably reflects the reduction in albedo related to that. Finally, the major drivers of the observed mass-balance evolution are investigated: summer PDD sums correlate significantly better with the observed mass-balance changes than annual PDD sums or precipitation do. This implies that annual mass balances in the study area are governed by summer temperatures.