Abstract
Glaciers are important water reservoirs for the Andean basins. Due to their tropical latitudes, their energy balance is very sensitive to climate change. The present study analyzed the ablation in the tropical Andean glacier Condoriri by applying an energy balance of the hydrologic year 2011-2012. The total ablation was separated into sublimation and melting. Sublimation accounts for 54.4% of total ablation, which is similar to results from other tropical glaciers. It was found that ablation changes with elevation; melting decreases with elevation. The water from melting glacier accounts for 8.5% of the total water input. The glacier balance shows that the equilibrium line altitude (ELA) is located at 5080 m above sea level, similar to ELA estimation of other studies. Analyzing the temperature trends shows that global warming not only will increase the ablation, but also will modify the melting-ablation relation. Higher temperatures will increase the energy used for melting and decrease the energy used for sublimation.
