Among meteorological elements, precipitation has a large spatial variability and less observation, particularly in high-mountain Asia, although precipitation in mountains is an important parameter for hydrological circulation. We estimated precipitation contributing to glacier mass at the median elevation of glaciers, which is presumed to be at equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) such that mass balance is zero at that elevation, by tuning adjustment parameters of precipitation. We also made comparisons between the median elevation of glaciers, including the effect of drifting snow and avalanche, and eliminated those local effects. Then, we could obtain the median elevation of glaciers depending only on climate to estimate glacier surface precipitation.
Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan; Chiba Institute of Science, Chiba, Japan; Earth Observation Research Center, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tsukuba, Japan
Recommended Citation:
Sakai A,, Nuimura T,, Fujita K,et al. Climate regime of Asian glaciers revealed by GAMDAM glacier inventory[J]. Cryosphere,2015-01-01,9(3)