关键词: Svalbard地区, 冰川, 物质平衡, 气候变化, Svalbard地区, 冰川, 物质平衡, 气候变化

Abstract: The history of mass balance observations and studies of glaciers in Svalbard has been reviewed in this paper.Their characteristics since the 1950s are summarized as follows: 1) There is no obvious long-term tendency in annual net balance,winter accumulation and summer ablation.The annual net balance is generally negative,resulting in continuous shrinkage of glacier volumes.2) The inter-annual variation of winter accumulation is comparatively stable,while the summer ablation shows a larger inter-annual oscillation.There is no indication of increasing melting during the observation period.3) The area/altitude distribution results in the diversity of mass balance of glaciers.The glaciers with smaller area(<10 km²) and lower altitude(<500 m) retreat steadily,however, the glacier with larger area and higher elevation is kept in zero net balance or a slightly positive net balance.4) There is a good inverse relationship between net mass balance and equilibrium line altitude(ELA).No obvious change of mean mass balance gradient has been found,which means that glacial sensitivity of mass balance to ELA(or climatic) change keeps stable in Svalbard.5) Glacier mass balance in Svalbard has close relationship with positive degree-days in July,August and September-October,as well as winter precipitation.At last,in this paper,it is suggested to further strengthen the research of internal accumulation processes for polythermal glaciers in Svalbard and to study comparatively the mass balance between Svalbard archipelago and Tianshan Mountains,in order to understand the characteristics of mass balance of Svalbard glaciers accurately.

Key words: Svalbard, glacier, mass balance, climate change, Svalbard, glacier, mass balance, climate change