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During the second half of the 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula region has undergone a long and sustained warming period, followed by a shorter but also sustained cooling period, and then a very recent return to warming conditions. All of these have profoundly impacted the glaciers peripheral to the Antarctic Peninsula. This paper focuses on the analysis of the surface mass balance monitoring of such glaciers by the glaciological method, complemented by the analysis of mass-balance estimates by geodetic methods, as well as frontal ablation estimates. We aim to summarize the current knowledge and outline the main challenges faced by investigating the mass balance of such peripheral glaciers and their current contribution to sea-level rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the second half of the 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula region has undergone a long and sustained warming period, followed by a shorter but also sustained cooling period, and then a very recent return to warming conditions. All of these have profoundly impacted the glaciers peripheral to the Antarctic Peninsula. This paper focuses on the analysis of the surface mass balance monitoring of such glaciers by the glaciological method, complemented by the analysis of mass-balance estimates by geodetic methods, as well as frontal ablation estimates. We aim to summarize the current knowledge and outline the main challenges faced by investigating the mass balance of such peripheral glaciers and their current contribution to sea-level rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of glacier length fluctuations serves as a reliable indicator of the past climate. In this paper, a numerical flowline model has been used to study the relationship between length variations of Chhota Shigri glacier and local climate since 1876. The simulated front positions of Chhota Shigri glacier are in agreement with those observed. After a successful simulation of the past retreat, the model was also used to predict future evolution of the glacier for the next 100 years under different climatic scenarios. These simulations indicate that the Chhota Shigri glacier may lose ~90% of its present volume by 2100 if the local temperature increases by 2.4 K, and for a temperature rise of 5.5 K, the glacier loses almost all its volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]