Ice‐Dynamical Glacier Evolution Modeling—A Review

• Published in: Reviews of geophysics (1985) 2022-06, Vol.60 (2), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Zekollari, H., Huss, M., Farinotti, D., Lhermitte, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Availability; Dry periods; Dynamic models; Dynamics; Environmental Sciences; Evolution; Glaciation; glacier; Glacier movement; Glaciers; Hazards; Ice; Ice sheets; Ice volume; mass balance; Mass transfer; modeling; Modelling; Remote sensing; Simulation; State-of-the-art reviews
• ISSN: 8755-1209; 1944-9208
• DOI: 10.1029/2021RG000754

Glaciers play a crucial role in the Earth System: they are important water suppliers to lower‐lying areas during hot and dry periods, and they are major contributors to the observed present‐day sea‐level rise. Glaciers can also act as a source of natural hazards and have a major touristic value. Given their societal importance, there is large scientific interest in better understanding and accurately simulating the temporal evolution of glaciers, both in the past and in the future. Here, we give an overview of the state of the art of simulating the evolution of individual glaciers over decadal to centennial time scales with ice‐dynamical models. We hereby highlight recent advances in the field and emphasize how these go hand‐in‐hand with an increasing availability of on‐site and remotely sensed observations. We also focus on the gap between simplified studies that use parameterizations, typically used for regional and global projections, and detailed assessments for individual glaciers, and explain how recent advances now allow including ice dynamics when modeling glaciers at larger spatial scales. Finally, we provide concrete recommendations concerning the steps and factors to be considered when modeling the evolution of glaciers. We suggest paying particular attention to the model initialization, analyzing how related uncertainties in model input influence the modeled glacier evolution and strongly recommend evaluating the simulated glacier evolution against independent data. Plain Language Summary Glaciers are permanent bodies of ice that move under their own weight. In contrast with ice sheets, glaciers directly affect their downstream environment through their role as natural water suppliers and their potential to generate natural hazards. Despite their limited total ice volume with respect to ice sheets (ca. 0.3 m for glaciers vs. ca. 65 m in ice sheets), glaciers are currently major sea‐level rise contributors and are projected to remain so in the coming century. Given their large societal importance, there is a wide scientific interest in accurately representing the dynamics and evolution of glaciers through time. To simulate glaciers evolution over time, a wide variety of techniques exist, where the most detailed techniques account for ice‐dynamical processes, that is, the movement of glaciers and mass transfer. In this review, we specifically focus on model studies that incorporate ice‐dynamical processes. Ice‐dynamical glacier evolution models h