Uncertainty Analysis of the Parameters of the Temperature-index Method: A Case Study of Shiyi Glacier in Qilian Mountains

In order to assess the performance of the common temperature-index melt model at both spatial and temporal scale in Qilian Mountains, we performed the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis on the parameters of a common temperature-index method and evaluated the glacier mass balance on a small alpine glacier, which is separated into two relatively independent branches, with the daily mass balance and the meteorological data in the summer of 2011 and 2012. Sensitivity analysis was conducted by perturbation analysis and uncertainty analysis was carried out by Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) for different conditions. The results showed that the temperature-index method could properly capture the diurnal variability of the glacier mass balance. But strong equifinality of model parameter existsed in model calibration due to the uncertainty in the parameters. The model was very sensitive to changes in the value of K_ice, followed by the K_snow and T_s. It was also found that the GLUE approaches could estimate and derive the posterior distributions of 3 parameters properly. Moreover, there existed an acceptable range, which ensured high precision under different conditions.