Research
An innovative statistical approach to downscaling climate scenarios to model the seasonal evolution of 21st-century ice-mass surface forcing
Although glaciers may seem remote, up to 2 billion people living downstream of the Himalayas, European Alps and Cordilleran mountain chains of the Americas depend on snow- and ice-fed rivers for subsistence, power and livelihoods.
Glacier-climate research has so far emphasised small-scale, point-based studies: relatively few studies have linked surface climate with large-scale atmospheric circulation.
Scaling down from global climate predictions, and scaling up from point measurements, are important challenges for understanding how glaciers will evolve under future climates. There is an obvious link between air temperature and melting, but in reality it is difficult to find clear trends because of the multitude of other influential variables.
This project pursues a realistic, 'synoptic' approach based on statistical analyses which relate variation in glacier surface conditions at the 950 km2 Langjökull ice cap in Iceland to the type and frequency of air masses, linking local-scale melt rates to large-scale weather systems.
