Seminar by Lizz Ultee (Dept. of Earth & Climate Sciences, Middlebury College:
Global model projections of glacial drought buffering through the 21st century
Abstract: Global climate model projections suggest that 21st century climate change will bring significant drying in the terrestrial midlatitudes. Runoff from glaciers is known to smooth water availability in glaciated basins, but glacier model projections indicate that glacial runoff will generally diminish through the 21st century. So, to what extent can we expect retreating glaciers to protect downstream areas from drought as the climate continues to change? Without dynamic glacier ice in global climate models (GCMs), a comprehensive picture of future drought conditions in glaciated regions has been elusive. In this talk, I will demonstrate how we have combined CMIP5 climate model output with runoff output from a global glacier model (GloGEM) to produce a modified Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and evaluate glacial buffering of droughts. We find that accounting for glacial runoff tends to increase multi-GCM ensemble mean SPEI (wetter baseline) and reduce drought frequency and severity, even in basins with glacier cover of less than 2% by area. We also find that the strength and future trend of glacial drought buffering depends on basin aridity index and glacial cover, and does not depend on other characteristics such as total basin area or latitude. Finally, I assess the robustness of this result to the assumptions typically made in glacier modelling.
The talk is in Aud 2 in the Geology Building. It is also possible to follow at Zoom.
Videolink to the lecture will be sent to the mailinglists alle@geo and geohyd-info@geo. If you want to subscribe to the geohyd-info@geo list send an email to Anita.
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About the seminar
This seminar is offered by the Section for Geography and Hydrology, Dept. of Geosciences, University of Oslo. The GEOHYD-seminars are announced as lunch seminars so bring your lunch if you want to.
The seminars are open for everyone interested, and especially students are welcome.
The Lunch Seminar Team
– Olga and Ruitang