---
DOAJ_listed: '1'
OA_place: publisher
OA_type: gold
PlanS_conform: '1'
_id: '21837'
abstract:
- lang: eng
text: 'In a warming world of glacier changes, the scientific community has dedicated
increasing attention to debris-covered glaciers and their response to climate.
A variety of models with distinct complexity and data requirements have been developed
and widely used to simulate melt under debris at different sites and scales, but
their skills have never been compared. As part of the activities of the International
Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) Debris Covered Glacier Working Group,
we present an intercomparison exercise aimed at advancing our understanding of
model skills in simulating ice melt under a debris layer. We compare 15 models
with different complexity at nine sites in the European Alps, Caucasus, Chilean
Andes, Nepalese Himalaya and the Southern Alps of New Zealand, over one melt season.
We run the models with measured meteorological data from automatic weather stations
and estimated or measured debris properties. We consider four main model categories:
(i) energy balance models that calculate melt by solving the physics of heat transfer
to the debris layer, but require a high amount of input data; (ii) a simplified
energy balance model; (iii) enhanced temperature-index models; and (iv) simple
empirical temperature-index models that have been extensively used given their
low data requirement but require calibration of their empirical parameters. Model
performance is evaluated using on-site measurements of sub-debris melt (for all
models) and surface temperature (for models based on the surface energy balance).
Our results show that physically-based energy balance models and empirical temperature-index
models perform in a distinct manner. At one end of the spectrum, simple temperature-index
models are accurate when recalibrated or when using site-specific literature parameters,
and show poor results when parameters are uncalibrated. At the other end, energy
balance models show a range of performance: the most accurate energy balance models
are those with the highest degree of complexity at the atmosphere-debris interface.
An important data gap emerged from our experiment: the poor performance of all
models at three sites was related to the poor knowledge of debris properties,
and specifically of thermal conductivity. Future work should focus on both: (i) consistent
data acquisition to evaluate existing models and support new model developments;
(ii) advancing models by accounting for processes such as debris-snow interactions,
moisture in the debris and refreezing. We suggest that a systematic effort of
model development using a common model framework could be carried out in phase
II of the Working Group.'
acknowledgement: "This project has received funding from the European Research Council
(ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
grant agreement No\r\n772751, RAVEN, “Rapid mass losses of debris covered glaciers
in\r\nHigh Mountain Asia”. It was also supported by the SNSF RENOIR\r\nproject “Resolving
the thickness of debris on Earth’s glaciers and\r\nits rate of change (RENOIR)”,
project number 204322.\r\nDavid Rounce received support from NASA-ROSES program\r\ngrants
NNX17AB27G and 80NSSC17K0566. Walter Immerzeel\r\nand Jakob Steiner acknowledge
support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon
2020\r\nresearch and innovation program (grant agreement no. 676819).\r\nBen Brock
acknowledges support from the EU/FP7 ACQWA\r\n(Assessing Climate impacts on the
Quantity and quality of WAter) project, NERC grant NE/C514282/1, the British Council-Italian\r\nMinistry
of University and Research Partnership programme and\r\nthe Carnegie Trust for the
Universities of Scotland.\r\nThe authors acknowledge the International Association
of\r\nCryospheric Sciences (IACS) for supporting the creation of the\r\nDebris-Covered
Glaciers Working Group (DCG-WG) which enabled this model intercomparison experiment.\r\nThe
authors thank Martin Heynen for producing Figs. 3 and 4.\r\nThe authors thank Duncan
Quincey and Richard Essery for their\r\nconstructive feedback and comments.\r\n"
article_processing_charge: Yes
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Francesca
full_name: Pellicciotti, Francesca
id: b28f055a-81ea-11ed-b70c-a9fe7f7b0e70
last_name: Pellicciotti
orcid: 0000-0002-5554-8087
- first_name: Adrià
full_name: Fontrodona-Bach, Adrià
id: f06891fd-9f42-11ee-8632-a20971c43046
last_name: Fontrodona-Bach
- first_name: David R.
full_name: Rounce, David R.
last_name: Rounce
- first_name: Catriona Louise
full_name: Fyffe, Catriona Louise
id: 001b0422-8d15-11ed-bc51-cab6c037a228
last_name: Fyffe
- first_name: Leif S.
full_name: Anderson, Leif S.
last_name: Anderson
- first_name: Álvaro
full_name: Ayala, Álvaro
last_name: Ayala
- first_name: Ben W.
full_name: Brock, Ben W.
last_name: Brock
- first_name: Pascal
full_name: Buri, Pascal
last_name: Buri
- first_name: Stefan
full_name: Fugger, Stefan
last_name: Fugger
- first_name: Koji
full_name: Fujita, Koji
last_name: Fujita
- first_name: PRATEEK
full_name: GANTAYAT, PRATEEK
id: 02734268-3e8d-11ef-80a1-cec4a088d004
last_name: GANTAYAT
- first_name: Alexander R.
full_name: Groos, Alexander R.
last_name: Groos
- first_name: Walter
full_name: Immerzeel, Walter
last_name: Immerzeel
- first_name: Marin
full_name: Kneib, Marin
last_name: Kneib
- first_name: Christoph
full_name: Mayer, Christoph
last_name: Mayer
- first_name: Shelley
full_name: MacDonell, Shelley
last_name: MacDonell
- first_name: Michael
full_name: McCarthy, Michael
id: 22a2674a-61ce-11ee-94b5-d18813baf16f
last_name: McCarthy
- first_name: James
full_name: McPhee, James
last_name: McPhee
- first_name: Evan
full_name: Miles, Evan
last_name: Miles
- first_name: Heather
full_name: Purdie, Heather
last_name: Purdie
- first_name: Ekaterina
full_name: Rets, Ekaterina
last_name: Rets
- first_name: Akiko
full_name: Sakai, Akiko
last_name: Sakai
- first_name: Thomas
full_name: Shaw, Thomas
id: 3caa3f91-1f03-11ee-96ce-e0e553054d6e
last_name: Shaw
orcid: 0000-0001-7640-6152
- first_name: Jakob
full_name: Steiner, Jakob
last_name: Steiner
- first_name: Patrick
full_name: Wagnon, Patrick
last_name: Wagnon
- first_name: Alex
full_name: Winter-Billington, Alex
last_name: Winter-Billington
citation:
ama: 'Pellicciotti F, Fontrodona-Bach A, Rounce DR, et al. DCG-MIP: The debris-covered
glacier melt model intercomparison experiment. The Cryosphere. 2026;20(3):1895-1928.
doi:10.5194/tc-20-1895-2026'
apa: 'Pellicciotti, F., Fontrodona-Bach, A., Rounce, D. R., Fyffe, C. L., Anderson,
L. S., Ayala, Á., … Winter-Billington, A. (2026). DCG-MIP: The debris-covered
glacier melt model intercomparison experiment. The Cryosphere. Copernicus
Publications. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1895-2026'
chicago: 'Pellicciotti, Francesca, Adrià Fontrodona-Bach, David R. Rounce, Catriona
Louise Fyffe, Leif S. Anderson, Álvaro Ayala, Ben W. Brock, et al. “DCG-MIP: The
Debris-Covered Glacier Melt Model Intercomparison Experiment.” The Cryosphere.
Copernicus Publications, 2026. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1895-2026.'
ieee: 'F. Pellicciotti et al., “DCG-MIP: The debris-covered glacier melt
model intercomparison experiment,” The Cryosphere, vol. 20, no. 3. Copernicus
Publications, pp. 1895–1928, 2026.'
ista: 'Pellicciotti F, Fontrodona-Bach A, Rounce DR, Fyffe CL, Anderson LS, Ayala
Á, Brock BW, Buri P, Fugger S, Fujita K, GANTAYAT P, Groos AR, Immerzeel W, Kneib
M, Mayer C, MacDonell S, McCarthy M, McPhee J, Miles E, Purdie H, Rets E, Sakai
A, Shaw T, Steiner J, Wagnon P, Winter-Billington A. 2026. DCG-MIP: The debris-covered
glacier melt model intercomparison experiment. The Cryosphere. 20(3), 1895–1928.'
mla: 'Pellicciotti, Francesca, et al. “DCG-MIP: The Debris-Covered Glacier Melt
Model Intercomparison Experiment.” The Cryosphere, vol. 20, no. 3, Copernicus
Publications, 2026, pp. 1895–928, doi:10.5194/tc-20-1895-2026.'
short: F. Pellicciotti, A. Fontrodona-Bach, D.R. Rounce, C.L. Fyffe, L.S. Anderson,
Á. Ayala, B.W. Brock, P. Buri, S. Fugger, K. Fujita, P. GANTAYAT, A.R. Groos,
W. Immerzeel, M. Kneib, C. Mayer, S. MacDonell, M. McCarthy, J. McPhee, E. Miles,
H. Purdie, E. Rets, A. Sakai, T. Shaw, J. Steiner, P. Wagnon, A. Winter-Billington,
The Cryosphere 20 (2026) 1895–1928.
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2026-05-07T08:48:38Z
date_published: 2026-04-02T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-05-18T06:12:56Z
day: '02'
ddc:
- '550'
department:
- _id: FrPe
doi: 10.5194/tc-20-1895-2026
file:
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checksum: f15abad4ee360d41a3e8794f068711fc
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creator: dernst
date_created: 2026-05-18T06:07:53Z
date_updated: 2026-05-18T06:07:53Z
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has_accepted_license: '1'
intvolume: ' 20'
issue: '3'
language:
- iso: eng
month: '04'
oa: 1
oa_version: Published Version
page: 1895-1928
publication: The Cryosphere
publication_identifier:
eissn:
- 1994-0424
publication_status: published
publisher: Copernicus Publications
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: 'DCG-MIP: The debris-covered glacier melt model intercomparison experiment'
tmp:
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legal_code_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
name: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)
short: CC BY (4.0)
type: journal_article
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
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...