Numerical modelling of the dynamics response of glacier to changing climates ...

• Main Author: Lam, Joseph Kah-Wah
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository 1999
• Subjects: Climate change; Global warming; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.48054; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/300979

Simulations with General Circulation Models have indicated that global warming will be enhanced at high latitudes. Wetter conditions in these regions are quite plausible with global warming due to warmer sea surface temperatures, melting of sea ice and a greater moisture holding capacity of the atmosphere. Recent observations show a marked increase in precipitation in the High Arctic regions during the past decades. To make reliable predictions of the response of High Arctic glaciers to a warmer and wetter climate, and hence, their contribution to sea-level rise, an adaptive-grid finite-volume glacier model coupled with a surface mass balance model has been developed to investigate the interactions of the glaciers with climate change induced by global warming. The adaptive-grid finite-volume glacier model is an implicit one-dimensional dynamic flowline model. The discretized implicit finite-volume equations are solved by an iterative predictor-corrector method. The grid adapts as the terminus moves in ...