Abstract
Glacier wastage has been pervasive during the last century; small glaciers and those in marginal environments are disappearing, large mid-latitude glaciers are shrinking slightly, and arctic glaciers are warming. Net mass balances during the last 40 years are predominately negative and both winter and summer balances (accumulation and ablation) and mass turnover are increasing, especially after 1988. Two principal components of winter balance time-series explain about 50% of the variability in the data. Glacier winter balances in north and central Europe correlate with the Arctic Oscillation, and glaciers in western North America correlate with the Southern Oscillation and Northern Hemisphere air temperature. The degree of synchronization for distant glaciers relates to changes in time of atmospheric circulation patterns as well as differing dynamic responses.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Adalgiersdottir, G., Echelmeyer, K. A., and Harrison, W. D.: 1998, ‘Elevation and Volume Changes on the Harding Icefield, Alaska’, J. Glaciol. 44, 570–582.
Bahr, D. B., Meier, M. F., and Peckham, S. D.: 1997, ‘The Physical Basis of Glacier Volume-Area Scaling’, J. Geophys. Res. 102, 20355–20362.
Bitz, C. C. and Battisti, D. S.: 1999, Tnterannual to Decadal Variability in Climate and the Glacier Mass Balance in Washington, Western Canada, and Alaska’, J. Climate 12, 3181–3196.
Bradley, R. S. and Serreze, M. C.: 1987, ‘Mass Balance of Two High Arctic Plateau Ice Caps’, J. Glaciol. 33, 123–128.
Braun, C., Hardy, D. R., and Bradley, R. S.: 2001, ‘Recent Recession of a Small Plateau Ice Cap, Ellesmere Island, Canada’, J. Glaciol. 47, 154.
Cao, M. S.: 1998, ‘Detection of Abrupt Changes in Glacier Mass Balance in the Tien Shan Mountains’, J. Glaciol., 44, 352–358.
Cayan, D. R. and Peterson, D. H.: 1989, ‘The Influence of North Pacific Atmospheric Circulation on Streamflow in the West’, in Petersen, D. H. (ed.), Aspects of Climate Variability in the Pacific and Western Americas, Geophysical Monograph 55, American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C., pp. 375–397.
Dyurgerov, M. B.: 2002, Glacier Mass Balance and Regime: Data of Measurements and Analysis, Occasional Paper 55, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder, 268 pp.
Dyurgerov, M. B., Liu Shaohai, Xie Zichu (eds.): 1995, Oledenenie Tyan Shanya [Tien-Shan Glaciers], Publishing House ‘Nauka’, Moscow, 233 pp.
Dyurgerov, M. B. and Meier, M. F.: 1997, ‘Mass Balance of Mountain and Subpolar Glaciers: A New Global Assessment for 1961–1990, Arc. Alp. Res. 29, 379–391.
Dyurgerov, M. B. and Meier, M. F.: 2000, ‘Twentieth Century Climate Change: Evidence from Small Glaciers’, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 97, 1406–1411.
Ebbesmeyer, C. C., Cayan, D. R., McLain, D. R., Nichols, F. H., Peterson, D. H., and Redmond, K. T.: 1991, ‘1976 Step in the Pacific Climate: Forty Environmental Changes between 1968–1975 and 1974–1984’, Proceedings: Seventh Annual Pacific Climate Workshop, California Department of Water Resources, Interagency Ecological Studies Program, Asilomar, California, Report 26.
Echelmeyer, K. A. et al.: 1996, ‘Airborne Surface Profiling of Glaciers: A Case-Study in Alaska’, J. Glaciol. 44, 538–547.
Folland, C. K. and Parker, D. E.: 1990, ‘Observed Variations of Sea Surface Temperature’, in Schlesinger, M. E. (ed.), Climate-Ocean Interaction, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 21–52.
Fraedrich, K. and Muller, K.: 1992, ‘Climate Anomalies in Europe Associated with ENSO Extremes’, Int. J. Climatology 12, 25–31.
Haeberli, W., Hoelzle, M., and Suter, S.: 1998, Into the Second Century of Worldwide Glacier Monitoring — Prospects and Strategies, Studies and Reports in Hydrology, UNESCO, Paris, 227 pp.
Hastenrath, S.: 1991, The Glaciers of Equitorial East Africa, D. Reidel Pub. Co., Dordrecht.
Hastenrath, S.: 2002, ‘Past Glaciation in the Tropics: An update’, Clim. Change, this volume.
Hodge, S. M., Trabant, D. C., Krimmel, R. M., Heinrichs, T. A., March, R. S., and Josberger, E. G.: 1998, ‘Climate Variations and Changes in Mass of Three Glaciers in Western North America’, J. Climate 11, 2161–2179.
Horel, J. D. and Wallace, J. M., 1981: ‘Planetary-Scale Atmospheric Phenomena Associated with the Southern Oscillation’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 109, 813–829.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: 1992, Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment, Report Prepared for the IPCC by Working Group I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 158 pp.
Johnston, R. J.: 1980, Multivariate Statistical Analysis in Geography, Longman, New York, 280 pp.
Kääb, A., Paul, F., Maisch, M., Hoelzle, M., and Haeberli, W.: 2001, ‘The New Remote Sensing Derived Swiss Glacier Inventory: II. First Results’, Proceedings Fourth International Symposium on Remote Sensing in Glaciology, Annals of Glaciology, Int. Glac. Soc.
Kaser, G.: 1999, ‘A Review of the Modern Fluctuations of Tropical Glaciers’, Glob. Plan. Change 22, 93–103.
Koerner, R. A. and Fisher, D. A.: 1990, ‘A Record of Holocene Summer Climate from a Canadian High-Arctic Ice Core’, Nature 343, 630–631.
Koryakin, V. S.: 1988, Ledniki Arktiki (Arctic Glaciers), Publishing House ‘Nauka’, Moscow, 158 pp., in Russian.
Lingle, C. S., Echelmeyer, K. A., Seider, W. A., Li, H., and Valentine, V. B.: 1999, ‘A New Estimate of Elevation and Volume Changes on Seward and Malaspina Glaciers, Southcentral Alaska and Yukon, from Small-Aircraft Laser Altimetry, ERS SAR Imagery, and the 15 min. DEM of Alaska’, EOS Trans. AGU 80, Fall Meet. Suppl., F355.
Macheret, Yu. Ya., Glazovsky, A. F., Dowdeswell, J. A., and Gorman, M. R.: 1999, ‘Ice Volume Change on Franz Josef Land Archipelago in Last 40 Years’, Data of Glaciological Studies. Chronicle and Discussion, Moscow, 86, 107–115, in Russian.
Mann, M. E., Bradley, R. S., and Hughes, M. K.: 1999, ‘Northern Hemisphere Temperatures during the Past Millenium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 759–762.
Mayo, L. R. and Trabant, D. C.: 1984, ‘Observed and Predicted Effects of Climate Change on Wolverine Glacier, southern Alaska’, Proceedings, The Potential Effects of Carbon Dioxide-Induced Climatic Changes in Alaska, Miscellaneous Publication 83–1, School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management, Fairbanks Alaska: University of Alaska, 114–123.
McCabe, G. J. and Fountain, A. G.: 1995, ‘Relations between Atmospheric Circulation and Mass Balance of South Cascade Glacier, Washington, U.S.A.’, Arctic and Alpine Res. 27, 226–233.
McCabe, G. J., Fountain, A. G., and Dyurgerov, M.: 2000, ‘Variability in Winter Mass Balance of Northern Hemisphere Glaciers and Relations with Atmospheric Circulation’, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Res., 32, 64–72.
Meier, M. F. and Bahr, D. B.: 1996, ‘Counting Glaciers: Use of Scaling Methods to Estimate the Number and Size Distribution of the Glaciers of the World’, in Colbeck, S. D. (ed.), Glaciers and Ice Sheets: A Volume Honoring M. F. Meier, USA-CRREL Special Report 96–27, pp. 89–94.
Meier, M. F. and Wahr, J. M.: 2002, ‘Sea Level is Rising — Do We Know Why?’, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 99, 6524–6526.
Miller, A. J., Cayan, D. R., Barnett, T. P., Graham, N. E., and Oberhuber, J. M.: 1993, ‘The 1976–77 Climate Shift of the Pacific Ocean’, Oceanography 7, 21–26.
Redmond, K. T. and Koch, K. W.: 1991, ‘Surface Climate and Streamflow Variability in the Western United States and their Relationship to Large Scale Circulation Indices’, Water Resour. Res. 27, 2381–2399.
Sapiano, J. J., Harrison, W. D., and Echelmeyer, K. A.: 1998, ‘Elevation, Volume and Terminus Changes of Nine Glaciers in North America’, J. Glaciol. 44, 119–135.
Thompson, D. W. J. and Wallace, J. M.: 1998, ‘The Arctic Oscillation Signature in the Wintertime Geopotential Height and Temperature Fields’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 25, 1297–1300.
Thompson, D. W. J. and Wallace, J. M.: 2000a, ‘Annular Modes in the Extratropical Circulation. Part I: Month-to-Month Variability’, J. Climate 13, 1000–1016.
Thompson, D. W. J. and Wallace, J. M.: 2000b, ‘Annular Modes in the Extratropical Circulation. Part II: Trends’, J. Climate 13, 1018–1036.
Thompson, L. G.: 2002, ‘Tropical Glacier and Ice Core Evidence of Climatic Change on Annual to Millennial Time Scales’, Clim. Change, this volume.
Trenberth, K. T.: 1990, ‘Recent Observed Interdecadal Climate Changes in the Northern Hemisphere’, Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 71, 988–993.
Vinogradov, O. N., Konovalova, G. I., and Psareva, T. V: 1976, ‘Novie dannye o glaziogeomorfologii sovremennykh lednikov Kavkasa I ikh evolyutsii v XX veke (New data on glaciogeomorphology of modern glaciers of Caucasus and their evolution in XX century)’, Data of Glaciological Studies, Chronicle and Discussion, Moscow, 27, 44–50, in Russian.
Wilby, R.: 1993, ‘Evidence of ENSO in the Synoptic Climate of the British Isles since 1880’, Weather 48, 234–239.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Meier, M.F., Dyurgerov, M.B., McCabe, G.J. (2003). The Health of Glaciers: Recent Changes in Glacier Regime. In: Diaz, H.F. (eds) Climate Variability and Change in High Elevation Regions: Past, Present & Future. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1252-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1252-7_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6322-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-1252-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive