Glaciers in Peruvian Andes play an important role for local hydrology. To quantify the availability of glacier meltwater in a climate change scenario, surface energy (SEB) and mass balance (MB) models are required. However, few studies of SEB and MB modeling using coupled process-based models were carried out for this region. In this study, we use the newly updated COupled Snowpack and Ice surface energy and mass balance model in PYthon (COSIPY) in its 2-dimesnional spatially distributed version to simulate energy and mass fluxes over Artesonraju Glacier, Peruvian Andes, from 2016 to 2018. A glacier mass balance program was started at this glacier in 1995, with installation of a network of 22 ablation stakes and two automatic weather stations were started operating since 2005. COSIPY is forced by weather parameters like solar radiation, air temperature, relativity humidity, air pressure,...

Water from glaciers is crucial for the Peruvian hydropower production. Hence, we investigate the glacier-atmosphere and climate interactions in the Cordillera Vilcanota, considering scenarios of significant precipitation reductions until 2100. The glacier mass balance model ITGG-2.0 is used for analysing the energy balance components regarding the projections. The results indicate that a precipitation decrease not only affects the accumulation rate of glaciers but also influences the ablation energy availability. Therefore, glacier retreat in the Central Andes is expected to accelerate, making water availability unsustainable and likely leading to future shortages for the hydropower sector and for other water consuming systems.

Peruvian glaciers are important contributors to dry season runoff for agriculture and hydropower, but they are at risk of disappearing due to climate change. We applied a physically based, energy balance melt model at five on-glacier sites within the Peruvian Cordilleras Blanca and Vilcanota. Net shortwave radiation dominates the energy balance, and despite this flux being higher in the dry season, melt rates are lower due to losses from net longwave radiation and the latent heat flux. The sensible heat flux is a relatively small contributor to melt energy. At three of the sites the wet season snowpack was discontinuous, forming and melting within a daily to weekly timescale, and resulting in highly variable melt rates closely related to precipitation dynamics. Cold air temperatures due to a strong La Niña year at Shallap Glacier (Cordillera Blanca) resulted in a continuous wet season s...