摘要：Glacier-climate relationships in the Canadian Rockies have been documented previously through mass-balance studies of individual glaciers and local meteorological parameters. In terms of regional significance, however, the relationship between the areal distribution of glaciers and regional climate is perhaps more important in evaluating large-scale responses to climate forcings. The purpose of the current study is to establish which climate variables are responsible for the observed distribution of glaciers. Using a 1:50,000 digitized coverage of glaciers in the Canadian Rockies, a 1-km resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and climate normals from 88 stations throughout the study area, the authors examine the correlation between climate variables and the distribution of glacial ice in the Canadian Rockies. Through the construction of climatic lapse rates, sea-surface interpolation, and subsequent extrapolation based on the DEM, simple cell climatologies that reflect both the altitudinal and regional variations in temperature and precipitation are developed for the study area. Normalized Ice Coverage values prescribed for the study cells from the digitized coverage are then examined through a statistical framework which suggests that spring precipitation, annual temperatures, and winter precipitation are the strongest predictors of glacier distributions in the Canadian Rockies.
