Improving glacier melt modelling through ground-based profiling of atmospheric boundary layer

通过大气边界层的地面剖面分析改进冰川融化建模

• 批准号: RTI-2022-00533
• 负责人: Radic, Valentina
• 金额: $ 10.05万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Research Tools and Instruments
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=742967
• 关键词: Improving; glacier; melt; modelling; through

We request a sensor for measuring vertical profile of temperature and wind speed above glacier surfaces. The measurements are critically needed for development of better models of glacier contribution to streamflow and sea level rise. The retreat of mountain glaciers worldwide is a key indicator of modern climate change, with mass loss from glaciers contributing to sea level rise and to seasonal streamflow. Across Western Canada, maintenance of summer streamflow by glacier runoff is essential for hydro-power generation, agricultural irrigation and water supply. The coming decades will see rapid and unprecedented changes to glaciers worldwide. However, current glacier models for regional and global scale application are calibration-dependent and, due to sparsity of data for calibration, suffer from >50% uncertainty range in their simulations. There is an urgent need to narrow the uncertainty, and our goal is to address this need by developing physics-based models for glacier melt applicable for regional and global scales. These models are calibration independent and universally applicable, but require input climate data (e.g. incoming solar and longwave radiation, near-surface temperature and wind speed), commonly obtained from modelled climate fields that are too coarsely resolved to adequately represent local-scale processes driving glacier melt. The key challenges in this approach, are to successfully `downscale' the wind and temperature fields, and to adequately simulate turbulent heat fluxes, which are important contributors to melt. We will tackle these challenge by developing a katabatic model for downscaling of wind and temperature, and by improving current methods for assessing turbulent heat fluxes. But, in order to succeed, we critically need vertical profile measurements of wind speed, temperature and turbulent characteristics so that these new models/methods can be developed and validated. These measurements are essential missing component in our existing monitoring network of near-surface measurements and remote-sensing observations of glaciers in Western Canada. This proposal requests a cost-effective sensor, which has not yet been used at mountain glaciers, for vertical profile measurements at glaciers across Western Canada. The requested sensor will advance several ongoing research projects involving existing and future HQP across at least three universities. By advancing the modelling of glacier melt, we will ultimately provide more credible projections of glacier contribution to sea-level rise and streamflow at the level of detail necessary to inform local policy makers and user communities. Funded personnel working with this equipment will contribute to the cutting-edge research on risk assessment of freshwater resources under climate change, and will receive high-level training in geosciences, computing and data analysis, preparing them for a broad range of opportunities in academia, government or private industry.

我们需要一个传感器来测量冰川表面上方的温度和风速的垂直分布。这些测量对于开发冰川对径流和海平面上升的贡献的更好模型至关重要。全球山地冰川的退缩是现代气候变化的一个关键指标，冰川的质量损失导致海平面上升和季节性径流。在整个加拿大西部，冰川径流维持夏季径流对水力发电、农业灌溉和供水至关重要。未来几十年，全球冰川将发生前所未有的快速变化。然而，目前用于区域和全球尺度应用的冰川模型依赖于校准，并且由于校准数据的稀疏性，其模拟的不确定性范围大于50%。迫切需要缩小不确定性，我们的目标是通过开发适用于区域和全球规模的基于物理学的冰川融化模型来满足这一需求。这些模型不需要校准，普遍适用，但需要输入气候数据（例如入射太阳和长波辐射、近地表温度和风速），这些数据通常是从模拟的气候场获得的，这些气候场分辨率太粗，无法充分代表推动冰川融化的局部尺度过程。这种方法的关键挑战是成功地“缩小”风场和温度场，并充分模拟湍流热通量，这是融化的重要因素。我们将通过开发一个用于降低风和温度的下降模型，并通过改进当前评估湍流热通量的方法来应对这些挑战。但是，为了取得成功，我们迫切需要风速，温度和湍流特性的垂直廓线测量，以便开发和验证这些新的模型/方法。这些测量是我们现有的加拿大西部冰川近地表测量和遥感观测监测网络中缺少的重要组成部分。该提案要求使用一种成本效益高的传感器，但尚未用于山区冰川，用于加拿大西部冰川的垂直剖面测量。所要求的传感器将推进几个正在进行的研究项目，涉及至少三所大学现有和未来的HQP。通过推进冰川融化的建模，我们最终将提供更可靠的预测冰川对海平面上升和流量的贡献，其详细程度将为当地决策者和用户社区提供信息。获得资助的使用这一设备的人员将为气候变化下淡水资源风险评估的前沿研究做出贡献，并将接受地球科学、计算和数据分析方面的高级培训，为他们在学术界、政府或私营企业获得广泛机会做好准备。