Climate and modeling glacier in the complex terrain of Chilean Andes

• Ano de defesa: 2019
• Autor(a) principal: Pogorzelski, Vanúcia Schumacher
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Geleiras - Andes,Cordilheira dos, Região; Aquecimento global - Chile; Precipitação (Meteorologia) - Previsão; Meteorologia Aplicada
• Link de acesso: https://locus.ufv.br//handle/123456789/27183

Glacier fluctuations are an important source of water for the semi-arid in Central of Chile, especially during the dry season, ensuring the resources related to hydropower, agriculture, industry, tourism and mainly for domestic consumption. However, the retraction of Andean glaciers caused by local climate variability and global warming may impact future water resources. Glacier changes might also affect the economic growth and development of large cities in Chile as well as livelihoods of local com- munities living in the Andean mountains. With ongoing global climate change, wa- ter resources are vulnerable and should lead to mass migrations in the near future. Additionally, there are many gaps in the understanding of the Andean climate and glaciers, specially in terms of mass balance. In particular, the Andes of Chile have received little attention due to scarcity of surface stations to allow climate research in this region. The main objective of this study is to analyze main characteristics as- sociated with precipitation and temperature along Chile, and application of a glacier mass balance model in the complex terrain of Chilean Andes employing high resolu- tion modeling. There is a significant reduction of precipitation and warming trends in the high Chilean Andes, especially in Central Chile during the winter season, as well as an increase of the consecutive number of dry days. In addition, we simulated a mass loss of -82 cm w.e.yr-1 averaged between 1996 and 2015 over the Universidad Glacier, in Central Andes, with a negative trend of -2.2 cm w.e.yr-1 . The interannual variability is controlled mainly by summer melt. The sublimation accounts about 10% of ablation while evaporation is a smaller component, corresponding to 6%. Further- more, the high-resolution simulations of glacier mass balance developed in this study will be support future analyses of these glaciers at unprecedented detail, providing a deeper understanding of climate-glacier feedback, and provide new insights into glaciers mass balance in the Central Andes.