The importance of accurate glacier albedo for estimates of surface mass balance on Vatnajökull: evaluating the surface energy  budget in a regional climate model with automatic weather station observations

Schmidt, Louise Steffensen; Aðalgeirsdóttir, Guðfinna; Guðmundsson, Sverrir; Langen, Peter L.; Pálsson, Finnur; Mottram, Ruth; Gascoin, Simon; Björnsson, Helgi

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1665-2017

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1665-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1665-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

Research article

|

14 Jul 2017

Research article |

| 14 Jul 2017

The importance of accurate glacier albedo for estimates of surface mass balance on Vatnajökull: evaluating the surface energy budget in a regional climate model with automatic weather station observations

Louise Steffensen Schmidt, Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir, Sverrir Guðmundsson, Peter L. Langen, Finnur Pálsson, Ruth Mottram, Simon Gascoin, and Helgi Björnsson

Data sets

HIRHAM5 GL2 simulation dataset Ruth Mottram, Fredrik Boberg, and Peter Langen http://prudence.dmi.dk/data/temp/RUM/HIRHAM/GL2

MCD43A3 MODIS/Terra+Aqua BRDF/Albedo Daily L3 Global - 500m V006. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC C. Schaaf https://doi.org/10.5067/modis/mcd43a3.006

Short summary

The regional climate model HIRHAM5 is evaluated over Vatnajökull, Iceland, using automatic weather stations and mass balance observations from 1995 to 2014. From this we asses whether the model can be used to reconstruct the mass balance of the glacier. We find that the simulated energy balance is underestimated overall, but it has been improved by using a new albedo scheme. The specific mass balance is reconstructed back to 1980, thus expanding on the observational records of the mass balance.