Changes in climate extremes in a typical glacierized region in central Eastern Tianshan Mountains and their relationship with observed glacier mass balance

Abstract

As an icon of anthropogenic climate change, alpine glaciers are highly sensitive to climate change. However, there remain research gaps regarding trends in climate extremes in glacierized regions and their relationship with local glacier mass balance. In this study, these relationships and their underlying links were explored in a typical glacierized region in the Eastern Tianshan Mountains, China, from 1959 to 2018. All warm extremes exhibited increasing trends that intensified dramatically from the 1990s. Meanwhile, decreasing trends were found for all cold extremes except for the temperatures of the coldest days and coldest nights. All of the precipitation extremes demonstrated increasing trends, except for consecutive dry days and consecutive wet days. Statistically significant positive/negative correlations were detected between glacier mass balance and six warm extremes (TN90p, TX90p, SU99p, TR95p, TXx, and TNx)/four cold extremes (TN10p, TX10p, FD0, and ID0). Simulation results showed that the impact of the intensity/frequency of the warm extremes (TN90p, TX90p, SU99p, and TR95p) on glacier ablation was remarkable and the effect of the cold extremes (FD0 and ID0) on accumulation was also significant. Additionally, the increases in the intensity and frequency of most climate extremes seemed more remarkable in glacierized regions than in non-glacierized regions. Hence, studies on glacier-climate interactions should focus greater attention on the impacts of climate extremes on glacier evolution.