Student4Student Summerschool

Glacial changes are driven by interactions with the atmosphere. Therefore, understanding both the weather and climate of the atmosphere around glaciers and the physics of glacier-atmosphere interactions is critical for understanding the future prospects of the world’s glaciers, as well as interpreting the proxy record of past climate imprinted in ice cores. The atmosphere around glaciers is influenced not only by the regional circulation patterns, but also the topography surrounding the glacier which alters the atmospheric flow, particularly in mountain regions. These interactions also cause mountain regions to experience some of the most dramatic climate changes under global warming. The interactions of the topography with the regional circulation occurs on scales much smaller than the resolution of most atmospheric models, and high-quality observations of the atmosphere are not always available. These effects play a major role in controlling key energy and mass inputs to glaciers, introducing large uncertainties in studies using glacier models, and mean that the atmospheric processes influencing are often poorly understood.

This session will explore the atmospheric processes that influence the world’s glaciers. We welcome contributions from both glaciologists and atmospheric scientists studying glacierised regions. We aim to discuss methods for improving understanding of how atmospheric variables including the circulation, precipitation, and temperature are altered by complex terrain around glaciers, and techniques for overcoming sparse observation or model datasets in glacier regions, such as statistical or physical downscaling.