Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia
Arctic glaciers comprise a small fraction of the world’s land ice area, but their ongoing mass loss currently represents a large cryospheric contribution to the sea level rise. In the Suntar-Khayata Mountains (SKMs) of northeastern Siberia, in situ measurements of glacier surface mass balance (SMB)...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:92c626421c1c4956b6b0c5094dc3395f 2023-05-15T15:07:01+02:00 Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia Yong Zhang Xin Wang Zongli Jiang Junfeng Wei Hiroyuki Enomoto Tetsuo Ohata 2019-09-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3390/w11091949 https://doaj.org/article/92c626421c1c4956b6b0c5094dc3395f EN eng MDPI AG https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/9/1949 https://doaj.org/toc/2073-4441 2073-4441 doi:10.3390/w11091949 https://doaj.org/article/92c626421c1c4956b6b0c5094dc3395f Water, Vol 11, Iss 9, p 1949 (2019) mass balance Siberian subarctic Suntar-Khayata Mountains surface melt Hydraulic engineering TC1-978 Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes TD201-500 article 2019 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3390/w11091949 2022-12-30T21:16:59Z Arctic glaciers comprise a small fraction of the world’s land ice area, but their ongoing mass loss currently represents a large cryospheric contribution to the sea level rise. In the Suntar-Khayata Mountains (SKMs) of northeastern Siberia, in situ measurements of glacier surface mass balance (SMB) are relatively sparse, limiting our understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of regional mass loss. Here, we present SMB time series for all glaciers in the SKMs, estimated through a glacier SMB model. Our results yielded an average SMB of −0.22 m water equivalents (w.e.) year −1 for the whole region during 1951−2011. We found that 77.4% of these glaciers had a negative mass balance and detected slightly negative mass balance prior to 1991 and significantly rapid mass loss since 1991. The analysis suggests that the rapidly accelerating mass loss was dominated by increased surface melting, while the importance of refreezing in the SMB progressively decreased over time. Projections under two future climate scenarios confirmed the sustained rapid shrinkage of these glaciers. In response to temperature rise, the total present glacier area is likely to decrease by around 50% during the period 2071−2100 under representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5). Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Subarctic Siberia Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Suntar ENVELOPE(141.502,141.502,63.318,63.318) Water 11 9 1949 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
mass balance Siberian subarctic Suntar-Khayata Mountains surface melt Hydraulic engineering TC1-978 Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes TD201-500 |
spellingShingle |
mass balance Siberian subarctic Suntar-Khayata Mountains surface melt Hydraulic engineering TC1-978 Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes TD201-500 Yong Zhang Xin Wang Zongli Jiang Junfeng Wei Hiroyuki Enomoto Tetsuo Ohata Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia |
topic_facet |
mass balance Siberian subarctic Suntar-Khayata Mountains surface melt Hydraulic engineering TC1-978 Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes TD201-500 |
description |
Arctic glaciers comprise a small fraction of the world’s land ice area, but their ongoing mass loss currently represents a large cryospheric contribution to the sea level rise. In the Suntar-Khayata Mountains (SKMs) of northeastern Siberia, in situ measurements of glacier surface mass balance (SMB) are relatively sparse, limiting our understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of regional mass loss. Here, we present SMB time series for all glaciers in the SKMs, estimated through a glacier SMB model. Our results yielded an average SMB of −0.22 m water equivalents (w.e.) year −1 for the whole region during 1951−2011. We found that 77.4% of these glaciers had a negative mass balance and detected slightly negative mass balance prior to 1991 and significantly rapid mass loss since 1991. The analysis suggests that the rapidly accelerating mass loss was dominated by increased surface melting, while the importance of refreezing in the SMB progressively decreased over time. Projections under two future climate scenarios confirmed the sustained rapid shrinkage of these glaciers. In response to temperature rise, the total present glacier area is likely to decrease by around 50% during the period 2071−2100 under representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5). |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Yong Zhang Xin Wang Zongli Jiang Junfeng Wei Hiroyuki Enomoto Tetsuo Ohata |
author_facet |
Yong Zhang Xin Wang Zongli Jiang Junfeng Wei Hiroyuki Enomoto Tetsuo Ohata |
author_sort |
Yong Zhang |
title |
Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia |
title_short |
Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia |
title_full |
Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia |
title_fullStr |
Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia |
title_sort |
glacier surface mass balance in the suntar-khayata mountains, northeastern siberia |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/w11091949 https://doaj.org/article/92c626421c1c4956b6b0c5094dc3395f |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(141.502,141.502,63.318,63.318) |
geographic |
Arctic Suntar |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Suntar |
genre |
Arctic Subarctic Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic Subarctic Siberia |
op_source |
Water, Vol 11, Iss 9, p 1949 (2019) |
op_relation |
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/9/1949 https://doaj.org/toc/2073-4441 2073-4441 doi:10.3390/w11091949 https://doaj.org/article/92c626421c1c4956b6b0c5094dc3395f |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/w11091949 |
container_title |
Water |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
1949 |
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1766338594566307840 |