cc: Peter Lemke date: Wed Aug 10 16:03:33 2005 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: to: Georg Kaser , Kevin Trenberth Georg, Send us a revised bullet point and we'll modify it into better English. Do bear in mind we are only talking about a few sentences and this is still the FOD. Hopefully you can get this to us tomorrow. Maybe we just need to be a little more specific about regions. I just used Kilimanjaro as an example, as it had received, I felt, more attention in the media. Apart from hearing about it from Lonnie, I did see it on a BBC news item once. Few people know that there are any glaciers in Irian Jaya. Cheers Phil At 14:24 10/08/2005, Georg Kaser wrote: Kevin, Have many thanks for compiling and editing 3.9. I agree that the "radiatively forced" and the "amplified hydrological cycle" should be removed and I also agree with Phil's comment on the "local heat budget". In glaciology, the sum of each energy flux toward and from the respective snow/ice surface is considered to make up the "local heat budget". This also includes the sensible heat flux. There are some other points in the text which I would like to comment: 1. Tropical glaciers are considered those in the South American Andes between Venezuela and Norhern Boliva, those in East Africa and those in Irian Jaya (New Guinea). In Chapter 4, Tibetean glaiers are taken as part of the Asian High Mountains (find the present state Chapter 4.5. "Glaciers and Ice Caps attached). 2. Alaska, Patagonia, Karakoram, Norway and NZ cannot be merged in the respective statement. In Alaska and Patagonia, moderately increase accumulation is accompanied by strongly enhanced ablation making the mass balances markedly negative. From glaciological site, no studies concerning atmospheric circulation patterns are provided in the respective studies. In the Karakoram mountains, enhanced accumulation has led to considerable glacier advances, increased winter accumulation from the Westerlies is only suggested but not subject of detailed studies. Heavy debris loads on the tongues probably prevent from enhanced abaltion. In Southwest Norway and NZ South Island, glaciers advances have ceded around 2000. I don't know whether their advances shall still be mentioned in extension; I would not do so beyond the respective statement in Ch. 4.5. 3. "If continued, some may disappear within the next 30 years." This sentence can stand for every mountain region in the world and should not be used for tropical mountains only. Everywhere, many small glaciers have disappeared since the 19th Century maxima and many will disappear soon in the Alps, the Caucasus, in the Asian High mountains etc. as well as in the Tropics. From the today's perspective Mount Kenya, all Mountains in the Rwenzori Range except Mt. Stanley, Irain Jaya will be without glaciers soon, probably sooner than Kilimanjaro; well known and studied glaciers in the Andes like Chacaltaya, Charquini and Pastoruri will also disappear soon. This is not because of a particular regional climate feature but just because they were already small when retreats started. As you will see from Figure 4.5.5. Kilimanjaro's plateau ice is particular, slope glaciers are less. The plateau glaciers retreat from their vertical walls where no accumulation is possible and since they do so, there is no way to find an equilibrium besides disappearance. The vertical walls are a result of cold temperatures high sublimation and strong solar radiance. There is no way to replace the retreat by ice dynamics on the flat summit plateau. Slope glaciers are only partially subject of this kind of ablation and their retreat rate seems to have slowed markedly (See insert of Fig 4.5.5). If Kilimanjaro is mentioned in 3.9. it must also be added that it is a particular case with complex relation to climate change. 4. All studies which investigate tropical glacier retreat and climate show the dominance of changes in energy and mass balance terms which are related to the atmospheric moisture content rather than locally measured air temperatures. Both increased and reduced moisture can lead to negative mass balances and it has done so in most cases studied (Cordillera Blanca, Peru, Cordillera Real, Bolivia, Antisana, Ecuador, Rwenzori, Mt. Kenia, Kilimanjaro). Yet, wherever respective analyses were made, correlations were found to anomalies in ENSO or Indian Oceans Indian Ocean Dipole Mode respectively strongly indicating global warming as the principle reason of th eretreat. I give you this lengthy explanation in order to make sure that the very compressed and condensed bullet in 3.9. gets the right content. I have started to change your paragraph suggestion accordingly but have to admit that, not being a native speaker myself, it either becomes very long or very awkward. I also appreciate Phil's statement about Quelccaya and Sajama. Doug Hardy and Ray Bradley run AWS' there since a couple of years as well as on Kilimanjaro with all the problems of recording data at such high elevation sites. Doug is preparing a paper on the climate records there but it has still not reached it's final state. Information on sublimation on Quelccaya is not published such as the positive mass balances and advances on several Andean glaciers between 1998 and 2002 are not published. Kilimanjaro has experienced both ablation as well as accumulation layers on the horizontal surfaces over the last years. I have just come back from fieldwork there last week and the last half year was a mass loss year. Being very much involved into tropical glaciers myself, I have to accept that such detailed information would be available for several hundreds of glaciers in the world each one providing 10 or more publications. Going into such details cannot be the aim of the report, I am afraid. Best wishes, Georg Georg Kaser ------------------------------------------------- Institut fuer Geographie Innrain 52 A-6020 INNSBRUCK Tel: ++43 512 507 5407 Fax: ++43 512 507 2895 [1]http://meteo9.uibk.ac.at/IceClim/CRYO/cryo_a.html Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------