Modeling the Response of Glacier System to Climate Warming——Taking Glaciers in China as an Example

According to the Glacier Inventories of China,glaciers in China can be divided and sub-divided as 16 large,44 less large glacier systems based on the watershed.On the basis of the structure of the glacier system and the nature of the equilibrium line altitudes at the steady state,functional models of glacier system responding to climate warming were established,using Kotlyakov-Krenke's equation relating annual ablation of glacier and mean summer temperature and the representativity of glacier system's median size.The models are applied to the study of theresponse of glacier runoff to climatic change.The effect of decreasing air temperature due to rising of glaciers' ELA and reduction of glaciers area were considered in these models simultaneously.The modeling results under the climatic scenarios with temperature increasing rate of 0.02 K/a and 0.03 K/a indicate that,by the year of 2030,glacier runoff of China will reach climax level,then it will fall down,and get to the level of 20th's after the year of 2050.If climate continuously warming,the glacier area will continuously reduce,and by the year of 2030,2050,2100,the glacier area in China will averagely reduce for about 6%~9%,10%~15%,23.2%～34% respectively.