Simulating mountain glacier dynamics with the Community Ice Sheet Model

Simulating glacial mass changes and ice dynamics within Earth System Models (ESMs) is challenging due to their small size, sheer number, and spatial discontinuities in the ground ice coverage. This has resulted in a knowledge and representational gap in simulating glacier dynamics in ESMs, while the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Minallah, S., Lipscomb, W., Leguy, G., Zekollari, H., Maussion, F.
Format: Conference Object
Language:English
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5018232
Description
Summary:Simulating glacial mass changes and ice dynamics within Earth System Models (ESMs) is challenging due to their small size, sheer number, and spatial discontinuities in the ground ice coverage. This has resulted in a knowledge and representational gap in simulating glacier dynamics in ESMs, while there is a need for scaling ESMs from global to regional scales for comprehensive hydroclimatic assessments.We have implemented a new modeling framework for simulating the dynamic evolution of mountain glaciers within the Community Ice Sheet Model (CISM), the ice dynamics component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which presently simulates polar ice sheets. We will describe this framework and the associated challenges and share the results from 200-m CISM simulations over the high-mountain Asia domain with higher-order ice-flow dynamics under the GlacierMIP3 protocols.