Abstract
Abstract. Glaciers all over the world are expected to continue to retreat due to the global warming throughout the 21st century. Consequently, future seasonal water availability might become scarce once glacier areas have declined below a certain threshold affecting future water management strategies. Particular attention should be paid to glaciers located in a karstic environment, as parts of the meltwater can be drained by underlying karst systems, making it difficult to assess water availability. In this study tracer experiments, karst modeling and glacier melt modeling are combined in order to identify flow paths in a high alpine, glacierized, karstic environment (Glacier de la Plaine Morte, Switzerland) and to investigate current and predict future downstream water availability. Flow paths through the karst underground were determined with natural and fluorescent tracers. Subsequently, geologic information and the findings from tracer experiments were assembled in a karst model. Finally, glacier melt projections driven with a climate scenario were performed to discuss future water availability in the area surrounding the glacier. The results suggest that during late summer glacier meltwater is rapidly drained through well-developed channels at the glacier bottom to the north of the glacier, while during low flow season meltwater enters into the karst and is drained to the south. Climate change projections with the glacier melt model reveal that by the end of the century glacier melt will be significantly reduced in the summer, jeopardizing water availability in glacier-fed karst springs.
Highlights
Global warming has led to a drastic reduction of glacier volume in many mountain regions of the world (Dyurgerov and Meier, 2000; Kaser et al, 2006; Gardner et al, 2013)
As the glacier is temperate throughout the entire ice volume, plastic deformation of ice is an important process leading to a relatively rapid closure of empty glacial voids and drainage channels when the water input into the system is reduced (Röthlisberger, 1972)
A combination of natural and fluorescent tracer investigations, karst modeling, glacier melt modeling and climate change projections were performed in order to investigate current and future pathways of glacier and snowmelt through the karst below the Glacier de la Plaine Morte in the Bernese Oberland
Summary
Global warming has led to a drastic reduction of glacier volume in many mountain regions of the world (Dyurgerov and Meier, 2000; Kaser et al, 2006; Gardner et al, 2013). This reduction will subsequently affect glacier melt runoff, affecting downstream water resources (Farinotti et al, 2012; Finger et al, 2012). Predictions are complex, as meltwater drainage from the glaciers is subject to diurnal variability (Schuler et al, 2004) and may evolve during the melting season due to enhanced melting (Covington et al, 2012) and glacial lake outbursts (Werder et al, 2009). In many situations the proportion of water from a glacier to a karst spring is unknown, and, the number of springs fed by a glacier is difficult to estimate (Jobard and Dzikowski, 2006; Gremaud et al, 2009; Gremaud and Goldscheider, 2010)
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