Effect of dust event timing on glacier runoff: sensitivity analysis for a Tibetan glacier

✍ Scribed by Koji Fujita

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 289 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/hyp.6504

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The impact of the timing of dust deposition on glacier runoff was evaluated using a glacier mass‐balance model with a newly improved scheme to track a dusted layer in a snow layer of a glacier. The lowering of surface albedo due to the dusted layer appearing leads to a drastic increase of glacier runoff even under the same meteorological conditions. Calculations of seasonal sensitivity, the relationship between dusted date and resulting runoff, have shown that dust deposition during a melting season might cause a drastic mass outflow from a glacier through changing the surface albedo during the melting season. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.