Date of Award

1-1-2018

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences

Content Description

1 online resource (ii, xviii, 161 pages) : illustrations (some color), maps (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Mathias Vuille

Committee Members

Zhou Liming, Oliver Elison Timm, Jiping Liu, Douglas R. Hardy

Keywords

Central Andes, Future Projections, ice cap, Multiscale Analysis, Precipitation, Temperature, Ice caps, Atmospheric circulation, Precipitation (Meteorology), Glaciers, Climatic changes

Subject Categories

Atmospheric Sciences | Environmental Sciences | Geophysics and Seismology

Abstract

Glaciated areas over the central Andes are highly sensitive to atmospheric forcings, as demonstrated by their current accelerated retreat in response to global warming. The present Thesis is focused on quantifying and assessing future climate change impacts over Quelccaya ice cap (QIC), the world-largest tropical ice body, which is considered as a representative case of the tropical Andean cryosphere. I focused my study on characterizing large-scale forcing and future changes of precipitation and temperature, since they represent the most important variables for accumulation and ablation processes in glaciated mountain regions. In my research I developed tools to overcome the lack of in-situ information over mountain regions; I addressed the challenge to obtain accurate precipitation estimates from coarse-resolution global climate models (GCM), and developed projection of the future state and evolution of the QIC.

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