On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature
Abstract The paper tries to reconcile the facts that there are often useful correlations between ablation or run-off and air temperature while net radiation is usually the major source of ablation energy. Equations are derived from the energy balance to describe statistics for the ablation-temperatu...
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1981
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000011424 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000011424 |
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crcambridgeupr:10.1017/s0022143000011424 2024-04-07T07:50:24+00:00 On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature Braithwaite, Roger J. 1981 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000011424 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000011424 en eng Cambridge University Press (CUP) Journal of Glaciology volume 27, issue 97, page 381-391 ISSN 0022-1430 1727-5652 Earth-Surface Processes journal-article 1981 crcambridgeupr https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000011424 2024-03-08T00:35:27Z Abstract The paper tries to reconcile the facts that there are often useful correlations between ablation or run-off and air temperature while net radiation is usually the major source of ablation energy. Equations are derived from the energy balance to describe statistics for the ablation-temperature relation in terms of statistics for the relations between individual energy fluxes and air temperature. As examples, statistics are evaluated for four published series from Arctic Canada. Although the net radiation is the largest energy source in all four cases, the ablation rate is moderately well correlated with temperature and poorly correlated with net radiation. This is because the sensible heat flux is more variable than the radiation in three cases and is itself better correlated with temperature in all four cases. The major contributions to the increase of ablation rate with temperature (on average 6.3 kg m −2 d −1 deg −1 ) are due to sensible heat, followed by latent heat with a small contribution from net radiation. The resulting ablation-temperature model explains about half the variance of ablation rate. The main application of such a simple model is for the estimation of ablation totals in areas where glaciological and hydrological data are sparse. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic glacier* Journal of Glaciology Cambridge University Press Arctic Canada Journal of Glaciology 27 97 381 391 |
institution |
Open Polar |
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Cambridge University Press |
op_collection_id |
crcambridgeupr |
language |
English |
topic |
Earth-Surface Processes |
spellingShingle |
Earth-Surface Processes Braithwaite, Roger J. On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature |
topic_facet |
Earth-Surface Processes |
description |
Abstract The paper tries to reconcile the facts that there are often useful correlations between ablation or run-off and air temperature while net radiation is usually the major source of ablation energy. Equations are derived from the energy balance to describe statistics for the ablation-temperature relation in terms of statistics for the relations between individual energy fluxes and air temperature. As examples, statistics are evaluated for four published series from Arctic Canada. Although the net radiation is the largest energy source in all four cases, the ablation rate is moderately well correlated with temperature and poorly correlated with net radiation. This is because the sensible heat flux is more variable than the radiation in three cases and is itself better correlated with temperature in all four cases. The major contributions to the increase of ablation rate with temperature (on average 6.3 kg m −2 d −1 deg −1 ) are due to sensible heat, followed by latent heat with a small contribution from net radiation. The resulting ablation-temperature model explains about half the variance of ablation rate. The main application of such a simple model is for the estimation of ablation totals in areas where glaciological and hydrological data are sparse. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Braithwaite, Roger J. |
author_facet |
Braithwaite, Roger J. |
author_sort |
Braithwaite, Roger J. |
title |
On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature |
title_short |
On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature |
title_full |
On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature |
title_fullStr |
On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature |
title_full_unstemmed |
On Glacier Energy Balance, Ablation, and Air Temperature |
title_sort |
on glacier energy balance, ablation, and air temperature |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
publishDate |
1981 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000011424 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000011424 |
geographic |
Arctic Canada |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Canada |
genre |
Arctic glacier* Journal of Glaciology |
genre_facet |
Arctic glacier* Journal of Glaciology |
op_source |
Journal of Glaciology volume 27, issue 97, page 381-391 ISSN 0022-1430 1727-5652 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000011424 |
container_title |
Journal of Glaciology |
container_volume |
27 |
container_issue |
97 |
container_start_page |
381 |
op_container_end_page |
391 |
_version_ |
1795665115089993728 |