Comparison of methods to estimate the glacier mass balance of Zongo glacier, Bolivia (s 16°, w 68°)
Keywords:
Tropical Glaciers, Mass Balance, Zongo GlacierAbstract
The longest and most continuous series of measurements of mass balance in the Intertropical Zone correspond to Zongo glacier, Bolivia. Measurements, which were initiated in 1991, were taken using both the hydrological and glaciological methods. Comparison of these results show discrepancies in the mass balances obtained. In order to verify the mass balances derived from both methods, a new mass balance was performed using the photogrammetric method, results of which were compared with the existing glaciological and hydrological methods. This comparison showed that the hydrological and photogrammetric methods are equivalent. However, these results disagree with the glaciological method. This difference is attributed to a lack of measurements using the glaciological method in areas of difficult access on Zongo glacier. In these areas, the glaciological method simply used interpolation to estimate the specific net mass balance. The final results of this three-method comparison show that the Zongo glacier maintained very close to a steady state of mass balance between 1956 and 1963 and then gained significant mass between 1963 and 1975 (3.86 m eq. aqua). After 1975, mass balances have been almost negative. Moreover, this research extended the range of mass balance observations on Zongo glacier to cover the past 50 years (1956-2006).
Downloads
References
Bader, H., (1954). Sorge's Law of densification of snow on high polar glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, 2 (15): 319-323.
Bauder, A., Funk, M., Huss, M., (2007). Ice-volume changes of selected glaciers in the Swiss Alps since the end of the 19th century. Annals of Glaciology, 46: 145-149.
Favier, V., Wagnon, P., Ribstein, P., (2004). Glaciers of the outer and inner tropics: A different behaviour but a common response to climatic forcing. Geophysical Research Letters, 31:(L16403).
Francou, B., Ribstein, P., Saravia, R., Tiriau, E., (1995), Monthly balance and water discharge of an inter-tropical glacier: Zongo Glacier, Cordillera Real, Bolivia, 16°S. Journal of Glaciology, 41 (137): 61-67.
Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kistler, R., Collins, W., Deaven, D., Gandin, L., Iredell, M., Saha, S., White, G., Woollen, J., Zhu, Y., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Higgins, W., Janowiak, J., Mo, K.C., Ropelewski, C., Wang, J., Leetmaa, A., Reynolds, R., Jenne, R., Joseph, D., (1996). The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 77 (3): 437-471.
Kaser, G. (2001), Glacier-climate interaction at low latitudes, Journal of Glaciology, 47 (157): 195-204.
Kaser, G., Hastenrath, S., Ames, A., (1996), Mass balance profiles on tropical glaciers. Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde und Glazialgeologie, 32: 75-81.
Kistler, R., Kalnay, E., Collins, W., Saha, S., White, G., Woollen, J., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Kanamitsu, M., Kousky, V., Dool, H., Jenne, R., Fiorino, M., (2001). The NCEP-NCAR 50-Year Reanalysis: Monthly Means CD-ROM and Documentation. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 82 (2): 247-267.
Paterson, W.S.B., (1994), The physics of glaciers, 3 ed., 480 p. Pergamon, New York - USA.
Ribstein, P., Tiriau, E., Francou, B., Saravia, R., (1995). Tropical climate and glacier hydrology: a case study in Bolivia. Journal of Hydrology, 165: 221-234.
Ribstein, P., Pouyaud, B., Sicart, J.E., Wagnon, P., Ramirez, E., Francou, B., (1999). Variabilité climatique et fonctionnement hydrologique d'un glacier tropical. ed. 279-287 p. XXII Assemblée Général de l'Union Géodésique et Géophysique Internationale, Birmingham-UK.
Sicart, J.E. (2002). Contribution à l'étude des flux d'energie, du bilan de masse et du debit de fonte d'un glacier tropical: Le Zongo, Bolivie, PhD Thesis thesis, 347 p., Université Paris VI-Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris-France.
Sicart, J.E., Ribstein, P., Francou, B., Pouyaud, B., Condom, T., (2007). Glacier mass balance of tropical Zongo glacier, Bolivia, comparing hydrological and glaciological methods. Global and Planetary Change, 59 (1-4): 27-36.
Thibert, E., Blanc, R., Vincent, C., Eckert, N., (2008). Glaciological and volumetric mass balance measurements an error analysis over 51 years, Glacier de Sarennes, French Alps, Journal of Glaciology, 54 (186): 522-532.
Vincent, C. (2002). Influence of climate change over the 20th Century on four French glacier mass balances. Journal of Geophysical Research, 107 (D19).
Wagnon, P. (1999). Analyse du bilan d'énergie d'un glacier tropical, application à la relation glacier-climat, PhD Thesis thesis, 199 p. Université Joseph Fourier-Grenoble I, Grenoble.
Wagnon, P., Ribstein, P., Francou, B., Pouyaud, B., (1999). Annual cycle of energy balance of Zongo Glacier, Cordillera Real, Bolivia. Journal of Geophysical Research, 104 (D4): 3907-3923.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2014 Álvaro Soruco, Christian Vincent, Bernard Francou, Antoine Rabatel
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Starting in 2022 (Vol. 43 number 2) articles will be published in the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
According to these terms, the material can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and adapted (remixed, transformed and created from the material another work), provided that a) the authorship and the original source of its publication (journal and URL of the work), b) is not used for commercial purposes and c) the same license terms are maintained.
Prior to this date the articles were published in the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY)
In both cases, the acceptance of the originals by the journal implies the non-exclusive assignment of the economic rights of the authors in favor of the editor, who allows reuse, after editing (postprint), under the license that corresponds according to the edition.
Such assignment means, on the one hand, that after its publication (postprint) in the GEOACTA Magazine of the Association of Geophysicists and Geodesists, the authors can publish their work in any language, medium and format (in such cases, it is requested that it be recorded that the material was originally published in this journal); on the other, the authorization of the authors for the work to be harvested by SEDICI, the institutional repository of the National University of La Plata, and to be disseminated in the databases that the editorial team considers appropriate to increase visibility. of the publication and its authors.
Likewise, the journal encourages the authors so that after their publication in the Journal of the Association of Geophysicists and Geodesists, they deposit their productions in other institutional and thematic repositories, under the principle that offering society scientific production and Unrestricted academic scholarship contributes to a greater exchange of global knowledge.
