Topographically-controlled contribution of avalanches to glacier mass balance in the 21st century.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41298449.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-65608-z and PMC identifier 12657945.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Glaciers are often located in steep mountain settings and avalanches from surrounding slopes can strongly influence snow accumulation patterns on their surface. This effect has however never been quantified for more than a few glaciers and the impact on the future evolution of glaciers is unclear. We coupled an avalanche and a glacier model to estimate the contribution of avalanches to the accumulation of all glaciers in the world and how this affects their evolution throughout the 21st century. Globally, 3% of the snow accumulation on glaciers comes from avalanches and 1% is removed by avalanches. This net contribution varies between regions and glaciers, with a maximum of 15% for New Zealand. Accounting for avalanches modifies the altitudinal pattern of glacier mass balance and the projected evolution of individual glaciers. The main effects include (1) a longer persistence of small glaciers, with for example three times more ice retained by glaciers smaller than 1 km<sup>2</sup> in Central Europe under a low-emission scenario, and (2) an increased sensitivity of high-elevation accumulation zones to future warming. We anticipate the relative influence of avalanches to increase in the future and advocate for a better monitoring of this process and representation in glacier models.