ИСТИНА

The retreat of glaciers of the Greater Caucasus in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries was recorded by a variety of methods, including both direct instrumental observations and remote sensing. It is natural to expect that in the conditions of a gradually warming climate, the general trend of glacier retreat will continue in the future. In the foothills of the North Caucasus, an important agricultural region, the problem of expected changes in mountain glaciation is particularly acute, since fluctuations in the flow regime of local rivers depend on the evolution of glaciers: the contribution of glacial runoff to total discharge is very significant. Retreating glaciers can also cause lakes to appear in local depressions in the underlying relief. Their possible breakthrough could cause significant damage to the economy and threaten human lives. The forecast of runoff and lake formation are associated with the projections on the future state of mountain glaciation. Here, we present the work in progress to assess the rate of future glacier change in the Central Caucasus throughout the 21st century. The aim is to determine how the characteristics of mountain glaciation (its area, volume, position of the glacier fronts) of the Central Caucasus will change, depending on the climate scenario. In order to accomplish this goal, we use the GloGEMflow model (Zekollari et al., 2019) with an updated radiation block (Rybak et al., 2021, in press) and a set of CMIP5/CMIP6 climate scenarios. The GloGEMflow model features an ice flow block which is calibrated to match the Huss & Farinotti (2012, updated to RGI6.0) glacier geometry data. Validation of the model is based on the assessment of discrepancies arising when comparing data about glaciers boundaries changes for the period from ~2000 (RGI6.0) to 2018 (Department of Glaciology RAS). The reported study was funded by RFBR and RS, project number 21-55-100003.