From the Little Ice Age to the future: modelling the evolution of Schiaparelli Glacier, Tierra del Fuego

Glaciers in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego remain among the least studied worldwide, despite experiencing pronounced mass loss over recent decades. Many glaciers in this region terminate in lakes or the ocean, making their evolution dependent on mass balance both directly controlled by climatic forcing at the glacier surface as well as dynamically controlled at the ice front. Recent studies demonstrate that warming air temperatures have increased surface melt rates significantly, suggesting climatic changes as the main driver for the observed losses. Climatically driven thinning can, however, trigger ice-dynamic instabilities, potentially amplifying glacier retreat.

To improve our understanding of the interaction of both components, climatic mass balance and glacier dynamics, we aim to establish a comprehensive modelling framework for Schiaparelli Glacier in Tierra del Fuego. Schiaparelli Glacier terminates in a proglacial lake that formed after recession in the 1940s. Ice thickness reconstructions reveal a potential overdeepening near the glacier front, which may lead to a self-accelerating ice-dynamic retreat once the glacier retreats into deeper water. This setting, combined with the availability of more than a decade of glaciological, meteorological and hydrological in-situ observations, makes Schiaparelli Glacier an attractive and exciting research target.

The aim of this study is to set up a modelling framework to simulate the evolution of Schiaparelli Glacier in the past and future, covering the Little Ice Age to the end of the 21^st century. To do so, we will rely on the FROST framework (“Framework for assimilating Remote-sensing Observations for Surface mass balance Tuning”), which applies an Ensemble Kalman Filter to calibrate glacier-specific surface mass balance parameters using remote sensing observations. FROST is coupled to the Instructed Glacier Model (IGM) to capture the glacier dynamics. We further upgrade the surface mass balance scheme from a basic temperature-index model to a simplified energy balance model that explicitly accounts for solar radiation. Past glacier extents derived from moraine and tree-ring dating are used to validate the reconstructed glacier evolution of Schiaparelli Glacier.