The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile
Glaciers and ice caps are thinning and retreating along the entire Andes ridge, and drivers of this mass loss vary between the different climate zones. The southern part of the Andes (Wet Andes) has the highest abundance of glaciers in number and size, and a proper understanding of ice dynamics is i...
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Language: | English |
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Copernicus Gesellschaft MBH
2021
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ftunivchile:oai:repositorio.uchile.cl:2250/182903 2023-05-15T16:21:31+02:00 The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile Scheiter, Matthias Schaefer, Marius Flández, Eduardo Bozkurt, Deniz Greve, Ralf 2021 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3637-2021 https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/182903 en eng Copernicus Gesellschaft MBH The Cryosphere, 15, 3637–3654, 2021 doi:10.5194/tc-15-3637-2021 https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/182903 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ CC-BY-NC-ND The Cryosphere Surface mass-balance Equilibrium-line altitude Numerical simulations Glacier volume Climate-change Lake district Sheet model Greenland Schemes CMIP5 Artículo de revista 2021 ftunivchile https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3637-2021 2021-11-28T00:49:56Z Glaciers and ice caps are thinning and retreating along the entire Andes ridge, and drivers of this mass loss vary between the different climate zones. The southern part of the Andes (Wet Andes) has the highest abundance of glaciers in number and size, and a proper understanding of ice dynamics is important to assess their evolution. In this contribution, we apply the ice-sheet model SICOPOLIS (SImulation COde for POLythermal Ice Sheets) to the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in the Chilean Lake District (40◦ S, 72◦ W; Wet Andes) to reproduce its current state and to project its evolution until the end of the 21st century under different global warming scenarios. First, we create a model spin-up using observed surface mass balance data on the south-eastern catchment, extrapolating them to the whole ice cap using an aspect-dependent parameterization. This spin-up is able to reproduce the most important present-day glacier features. Based on the spin-up, we then run the model 80 years into the future, forced by projected surface temperature anomalies from different global climate models under different radiative pathway scenarios to obtain estimates of the ice cap’s state by the end of the 21st century. The mean projected ice volume losses are 56 ± 16 % (RCP2.6), 81 ± 6 % (RCP4.5), and 97 ± 2 % (RCP8.5) with respect to the ice volume estimated by radio-echo sounding data from 2013. We estimate the uncertainty of our projections based on the spread of the results when forcing with different global climate models and on the uncertainty associated with the variation of the equilibrium line altitude with temperature change. Considering our results, we project a considerable deglaciation of the Chilean Lake District by the end of the 21st century. Australian National University CSIRO Deep Earth Imaging Future Science Platform Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 1180785 1201967 ANID Versión publicada - versión final del editor Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Greenland Ice cap Ice Sheet The Cryosphere Universidad de Chile: Repositorio académico Greenland The Cryosphere 15 8 3637 3654 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Universidad de Chile: Repositorio académico |
op_collection_id |
ftunivchile |
language |
English |
topic |
Surface mass-balance Equilibrium-line altitude Numerical simulations Glacier volume Climate-change Lake district Sheet model Greenland Schemes CMIP5 |
spellingShingle |
Surface mass-balance Equilibrium-line altitude Numerical simulations Glacier volume Climate-change Lake district Sheet model Greenland Schemes CMIP5 Scheiter, Matthias Schaefer, Marius Flández, Eduardo Bozkurt, Deniz Greve, Ralf The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile |
topic_facet |
Surface mass-balance Equilibrium-line altitude Numerical simulations Glacier volume Climate-change Lake district Sheet model Greenland Schemes CMIP5 |
description |
Glaciers and ice caps are thinning and retreating along the entire Andes ridge, and drivers of this mass loss vary between the different climate zones. The southern part of the Andes (Wet Andes) has the highest abundance of glaciers in number and size, and a proper understanding of ice dynamics is important to assess their evolution. In this contribution, we apply the ice-sheet model SICOPOLIS (SImulation COde for POLythermal Ice Sheets) to the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in the Chilean Lake District (40◦ S, 72◦ W; Wet Andes) to reproduce its current state and to project its evolution until the end of the 21st century under different global warming scenarios. First, we create a model spin-up using observed surface mass balance data on the south-eastern catchment, extrapolating them to the whole ice cap using an aspect-dependent parameterization. This spin-up is able to reproduce the most important present-day glacier features. Based on the spin-up, we then run the model 80 years into the future, forced by projected surface temperature anomalies from different global climate models under different radiative pathway scenarios to obtain estimates of the ice cap’s state by the end of the 21st century. The mean projected ice volume losses are 56 ± 16 % (RCP2.6), 81 ± 6 % (RCP4.5), and 97 ± 2 % (RCP8.5) with respect to the ice volume estimated by radio-echo sounding data from 2013. We estimate the uncertainty of our projections based on the spread of the results when forcing with different global climate models and on the uncertainty associated with the variation of the equilibrium line altitude with temperature change. Considering our results, we project a considerable deglaciation of the Chilean Lake District by the end of the 21st century. Australian National University CSIRO Deep Earth Imaging Future Science Platform Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 1180785 1201967 ANID Versión publicada - versión final del editor |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Scheiter, Matthias Schaefer, Marius Flández, Eduardo Bozkurt, Deniz Greve, Ralf |
author_facet |
Scheiter, Matthias Schaefer, Marius Flández, Eduardo Bozkurt, Deniz Greve, Ralf |
author_sort |
Scheiter, Matthias |
title |
The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile |
title_short |
The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile |
title_full |
The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile |
title_fullStr |
The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile |
title_full_unstemmed |
The 21st-century fate of the Mocho-Choshuenco ice cap in southern Chile |
title_sort |
21st-century fate of the mocho-choshuenco ice cap in southern chile |
publisher |
Copernicus Gesellschaft MBH |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3637-2021 https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/182903 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
glacier Greenland Ice cap Ice Sheet The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland Ice cap Ice Sheet The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere |
op_relation |
The Cryosphere, 15, 3637–3654, 2021 doi:10.5194/tc-15-3637-2021 https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/182903 |
op_rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3637-2021 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
15 |
container_issue |
8 |
container_start_page |
3637 |
op_container_end_page |
3654 |
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1766009526380658688 |