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Glaciers and Climate Change – Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Glacier Fluctuations in the European Alps After 1850

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Glaciers and Climate Change – Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Glacier Fluctuations in the European Alps After 1850 Glaciers and Climate Change – Spatio-temporal Analysis of Glacier Fluctuations in the European Alps after 1850 Dissertation zur Erlangung der naturwissenschaftlichen Doktorwürde (Dr. sc. nat.) vorgelegt der Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Zürich von Michael Zemp von Romoos LU Promotionskomitee Prof. Dr. Wilfried Haeberli (Vorsitz) Dr. Martin Hoelzle Zürich, 2006 Glaciers and Climate Change – Spatio-temporal Analysis of Glacier Fluctuations in the European Alps after 1850 Michael Zemp 2006 Cover picture: Calderas Glacier in the Upper Engadine, eastern Switzerland on August 9, 2003 (aerial photo kindly provided by C. Rothenbühler), overlaid with mean 6-month summer temperature anomalies in degree Celsius (single years and 10-years lowpass) to the 20th century mean of Alpine weather station above 1,500 m a.s.l. (provided by the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in Vienna, Austria). Summary In densely populated high mountain regions such as the European Alps, glaciers are an inherent component of the Alpine culture, landscape and environment. They represent a unique resource of fresh water for agriculture and industry, an important economic component of tourism and hydro-power production, and a potential source of serious natural hazards. Due to their proximity to the melting point, glaciers are considered among the best natural indicators of global climate change. Mountain glaciers have become the leading icon in the current debate on climate change and on the uniqueness of present-day changes as compared to the variations which occurred during the Holocene period. Although numerous studies have investigated the relationship between glaciers and climate change, glacier-climate studies that focus on an entire mountain range and integrate in-situ measurements, remote sensing data and modelling approaches, as proposed by modern monitoring strategies, have for the most part been lacking. It is to fill this gap in our understanding that this study undertakes to investigate glacier fluctuations in the European Alps after 1850. Glacier inventories, in-situ measurements and a numerical model (based on an empirical relationship between precipitation and temperature at the glacier steady-state equilibrium line altitude) are used in combination with a digital elevation model and GIS techniques to analyse the glacier fluctuations between 1850 and the end of the 21st century of the entire Alpine mountain range. Overall area loss after 1850 is calculated using different methods as being about 35% until the 1970s, when the approximately 5,150 Alpine glaciers covered a total area of 2,909 km2. This loss reached almost 50% by 2000. Rapidly shrinking glacier areas, spectacular tongue retreats and increasing mass losses are clear signs of the atmospheric warming observed in the Alps during the last 150 years and its acceleration over the past two decades, culminating in an ice loss of another 5–10% of the remaining ice volume during the extraordinary warm year of 2003. From the model experiment it is found that for Alpine glaciers, a change of ±1 °C in 6-month summer temperatures would be compensated by an annual precipitation increase/decrease of about 25%. A summer temperature rise of 3 °C would reduce the glacier cover of the reference period (1971–1990) by some 80%, or up to 10% of the glacier extent of 1850. In the event of a 5 °C summer temperature increase, the Alps would become almost completely ice-free. Annual precipitation changes of ±20% would modify such estimated percentages of remaining ice by a factor of less than two. The presented study demonstrates how modern monitoring strategies can be applied for the investigation of glaciers of an entire mountain range, and that the probability of glaciers in the European Alps disappearing within the coming decades is far from slight. The thesis consists of a collection of five papers; the studies reported on were carried out within the framework of the EU-funded ALP-IMP project and of the World Glacier Monitoring Service. i Zusammenfassung Gletscher sind in dicht besiedelten Hochgebirgsregionen, wie den Europäischen Alpen, ein fester Bestandteil der alpinen Kultur, Landschaft und Umwelt. Sie sind eine bedeutende Süsswasserressource für die Landwirtschaft und die Industrie, eine wichtige wirtschaftliche Komponente für den Tourismus und die Produktion von Wasser- kraftenergie und eine potentielle Ursache für Naturgefahren. Innerhalb der globalen Klimabeobachtungssysteme zählen Gletscher, durch ihre physikalische Nähe zum Schmelzpunkt, zu den besten natürlichen Klimaindikatoren. Gebirgsgletscher wurden zum Leitsymbol der gegenwärtigen Diskussion zum Klimawandel und zur Einzigartigkeit der aktuellen Veränderungen im Vergleich zur Holozänen Variabilität. Zahlreiche Studien haben die Beziehung zwischen Gletscher und Klimaänderung untersucht. Gleichwohl existieren nur wenige Gletscher-Klima Studien, die sich auf eine gesamten Gebirgskette konzentrieren und in einem integrativen Ansatz Feldmessungen, Fernerkundungsdaten und Computermodelle anwenden, wie es in internationalen Monitoring-Strategien vorgeschlagen wird. Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht daher Gletscheränderungen nach 1850 in den gesamten Alpen. Gletscherinventare, Feldmessungen und ein numerisches Model (basierend auf einer empirischen Beziehung zwischen Niederschlag und Temperatur auf der Höhe der Gleichgewichtslinie) werden verwendet, in Kombination mit einem digitalen Höhenmodel und GIS-Technologie, für die Analyse der Gletscheränderungen der Gesamtalpen zwischen 1850 und dem Ende des 21. Jahrhunderts. Der gesamte Flächenverlust seit 1850, berechnet mit verschiedenen Methoden, beläuft sich auf etwa 35% bis in den 1970er Jahren, als ca. 5'150 Alpengletscher eine Fläche von 2'909 km2 bedeckten, und auf fast 50% bis im Jahre 2000. Rapide schwindende Gletscherflächen, spektakuläre Rückzüge der Gletscherzungen und zunehmende Massenverluste sind klare Zeichen der atmosphärischen Erwärmung in den Alpen während den vergangenen 150 Jahren und deren Beschleunigung in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten, die in einem Verlust von weiteren 5–10% des verbleibenden Eisvolumens im ausserordentlich warmen Jahr 2003 gipfelte. Aus dem Modellierungsexperiment wurde ersichtlich, dass es für die Kompensation einer Änderung der 6-Monats- Sommertemperatur um ±1 °C eine Zu-/Abnahme des jährlichen Niederschlages von etwa 25% benötigt. Ein Anstieg der Sommertemperatur um 3 °C würde die Alpine Gletscherbedeckung der Referenzperiode (1971–1990) um ungefähr 80% reduzieren, oder auf ca. 10% der Gletscherausdehnung um 1850. Im Falle eines Anstieges der Sommertemperatur um 5 °C würden die Alpen praktisch eisfrei werden. Jährliche Niederschlagsänderungen um ±20% modifizieren solche geschätzte Prozentwerte des verbleibenden Eises um weniger als ein Faktor Zwei. Die vorliegende Studie demonstriert die mögliche Anwendung von modernen Monitoring-Strategien zur Untersuchung von Gletschern einer gesamten Gebirgskette und zeigt, dass die Möglichkeit des Verschwindens der Alpengletscher in den kommenden Jahrzehnten in Betracht gezogen werden muss. iii Contents Part A: Overview Summary i Zusammenfassung iii Contents v List of Figures ix List of Abbreviations xi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation ........................................................................................................1 1.2 Research objectives ........................................................................................2 1.3 Outline of the thesis.........................................................................................2 2 The European Alps 5 3 Thematic and scientific background 7 3.1 Climate ............................................................................................................7 3.1.1 Pleistocene and Lateglacial ................................................................................ 7 3.1.2 Holocene ............................................................................................................. 8 3.1.3 The last millennium ............................................................................................. 9 3.1.4 Future scenarios ............................................................................................... 11 3.2 Glaciers and climate change .........................................................................13 3.2.1 The cryosphere model ...................................................................................... 13 3.2.2 Energy balance at the glacier surface............................................................... 15 3.2.3 Glacier mass balance........................................................................................ 16 3.2.4 Glacier reaction to changing climate................................................................. 17 3.2.5 Modelling approaches ....................................................................................... 18 3.3 International glacier monitoring .....................................................................20 3.4 Alpine glacier fluctuations before 1850 .........................................................23 v Contents 4 Summary of research 27 4.1 Paper I .......................................................................................................... 28 4.2 Paper II ......................................................................................................... 29 4.3 Paper III .......................................................................................................
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