The Energy and Mass Balance of Peruvian Glaciers

Peruvian glaciers are important contributors to dry season runoff for agriculture and hydropower, but they at risk of disappearing due climate change. We applied a physically based, energy balance melt model five on-glacier sites within the Cordilleras Blanca Vilcanota. Net shortwave radiation dominates balance, despite this flux being higher in season, rates lower losses from net longwave latent heat flux. The sensible is relatively small contributor energy. At three wet snowpack was discontinuous, forming melting daily weekly timescale, resulting highly variable closely related precipitation dynamics. Cold air temperatures strong La Niña year Shallap Glacier (Cordillera Blanca) resulted continuous snowpack, significantly reducing ablation. Sublimation most highest site accumulation zone Quelccaya Ice Cap Vilcanota), accounting 81% ablation, compared 2%–4% other sites. Air temperature inputs were perturbed investigate sensitivity glaciers. warmer switch snowfall rain, so that ablation increased via decrease albedo increase radiation. top warming caused replace sublimation nonlinearly with temperature.