Abstract
In order to clarify how differences in weather conditions affect the surface heat balance of a large maritime glacier, meteorological observations were carried out in the ablation area of Glaciar Exploradores in the Chilean Patagonia during the austral summer of 2006/2007. Under cloudy/rainy weather, when the air temperature and wind speed were high due to advection, the average melting heat was 18.8 MJ m−2 day−1 and the turbulent heat fluxes contributed 35% of the total melt. During clear weather, the average melting heat was 16.9 MJ m−2 day−1 and 13% of the total was the turbulent heat fluxes. A decrease in air temperature due to the development of the glacier boundary layer on clear days will lead to an overestimation of the melt using the air temperature at a weather station outside of the glacier.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude to Juan Salas and Francisco Riestra of Direccion General de Aguas, XI Region Aysen, Chile for providing the precipitation data for Puerto Aysen. We are also grateful to Francisco Croxatto, Tamara Ullrich, and Ignacio Brunetti for their support in the field. Precise comments and suggestions from Thomas Mölg and an anonymous reviewer led to major improvements in the manuscript. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (project no. 18251002) and a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A) (no. 18740287) from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Some of the measurement devices were obtained from the Leadership Fund of the Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University.
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Konya, K., Matsumoto, T. Influence of weather conditions and spatial variability on glacier surface melt in Chilean Patagonia. Theor Appl Climatol 102, 139–149 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-009-0248-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-009-0248-0