I ghiacciai alpini come indicatori climatici

Glaciers as climatic indicators

Abstract

In this work at first a short introduction shows the climatic elements which can be related to glacier physical parameters. Then the parameters related to the mass balance and the frontal movements are analized. Subsequentely the relations between climate and mass balance and between cumulated frontal variations and cumulated mass balance are studied. Some indications about the response time of the glaciers to the climatic fluctuations are reported. These indications are obtained from physical and morphological parameters of the same studied glaciers. The studies about the relations between climatic variations and glacier frontal fluctuations published since 1932 are summarized. Finally a recent work showing the possibility to correlate time series of glacier frontal fluctuations to the dendrochronological series in order to obtain another evaluation of the response time of the glaciers is analized.