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| Titel |
From dwindling ice to headwater lakes: Could dams replace glaciers in the European Alps? |
| VerfasserIn |
Daniel Farinotti, Alberto Pistocchi, Matthias Huss |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250133805
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-14456.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Environments significantly influenced by the presence of seasonal snow or glaciers are
hotspots regarding the impacts on water availability in response to expected climate change.
With warmer temperatures, both the duration and the spatial extent of the seasonal snow
cover are projected to decrease, and glaciers are expected to retreat substantially. This is
anticipated to have important influences on water availability, including changes in the
seasonality of runoff, as well as an overall reduction in water yields from high-mountain
catchments.
Here we present an estimate for the potential of mitigating projected changes in seasonal
water availability from melting glaciers by managing runoff through reservoirs. We compute
the water volume that, in future, is expected to be in excess during winter and spring time,
and transfer it seasonally through temporary storage in order to mitigate the water deficits
during summer. Projections for future runoff evolution are retrieved from the glacier
evolution model GloGEM, forced with ensembles of temperature and precipitation time
series derived within CIMIP5.
For the European Alps we estimate that by the end of the century, about 1 km3 of water
from presently glacierized surfaces could be seasonally reallocated in order to mitigate
expected changes. On average, the strategy could offset up to 25 % of the changes in summer
runoff from presently glacierized surfaces. A first order approach suggests, moreover, that the
retention volume potentially available in the areas becoming deglacierized is in excess of the
volume required for achieving the maximal possible mitigation by more than one order of
magnitude.
Obviously, the proposed strategy cannot compensate for the reduction in annual
runoff caused by glacier ice depletion. Our estimates indicate that by 2070-2099,
0.73 ± 0.67 km3 a−1 of this non-renewable component of the water cycle could be missing in
Alpine water supplies. |
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