An estimate of glacier mass balance for the Chandra basin, western Himalaya, for the period 1984–2012

Abstract

ABSTRACT. An improved understanding of fresh water stored in the Himalaya is crucial for water resource management in South Asia and can be inferred from glacier mass-balance estimates. However, field investigations in the rugged Himalaya are limited to a few individual glaciers and short duration. Therefore, we have recently developed an approach that combines satellite-derived snowlines, a temperature-index melt model and the accumulation-area ratio method to estimate annual mass balance of glaciers at basin scale and for a long period. In this investigation, the mass balance of 146 glaciers in the Chandra basin, western Himalaya, is estimated from 1984 to 2012. We estimate the trend in equilibrium line altitude of the basin as +113 m decade −1 and the mean mass balance as −0.61 ± 0.46 m w.e. a −1 . Our basin-wide mass-balance estimates are in agreement with the geodetic method during 1999-2012. Sensitivity analysis suggests that a 20% increase in precipitation can offset changes in mass balance for a 1°C temperature rise. A water loss of 18% of the total basin volume is estimated, and 67% for small and low-altitude glaciers during 1984-2012, indicating a looming water scarcity crisis for villages in this valley.

An assessment of climate change impacts on glacier mass balance and geometry in the Chandra Basin, Western Himalaya for the 21st century

“…The glacier mass balance and geometry models are forced with climate anomalies to estimate the potential future changes in glaciers. For mass balance estimates, the improved AAR method is used which was developed and validated for the study basin (Tawde et al 2016, Tawde et al 2017. In this method, the position of equilibrium line altitude (ELA, altitude of the snowline at the end of melting season) and hence accumulation area of glacier is modelled using climate data.…”

“…Uncertainty in glacier area and volume projections by 2090 s in the RCP 8.5 scenario is estimated as 2.9%-7.1% and 7.0%-12% respectively, due to standard deviation in climate projections. Second, the uncertainties in inputs (temperature, snowfall, snow melt factor, temperature lapse rate and precipitation gradient) to the mass balance model (Tawde et al 2017) amplify the uncertainty in future area-volume estimates to 30%-40% (table S2). The third major source of uncertainty is associated with calculations of the present and future glacier ice thickness distributions.…”

“…The mass balance analysis suggest an acceleration in basin wide mass loss since mid-1990s and a mean mass balance of −0.61±0.46 m w.e./a during 1984-2012 (Tawde et al 2017). The novelty of this study is the estimation of future changes to individual glaciers at river basin scale using the improved Accumulation Area Ratio (AAR)mass balance method (Tawde et al 2016, Tawde et al 2017 which is calibrated and validated for the basin, along with a glacier geometry model (Huss et al 2010) driven by finer resolution climate data.…”

“…In an earlier study (Tawde et al 2016), we improved one of the existing mass balance methods for the Chandra basin, western Himalaya, and estimated annual mass balance of the basin for recent decades (Tawde et al 2017). Here, we assess the potential future changes in glacier mass budget and geometry for 145 glaciers (∼637 km 2 ) in the same basin (figure 1) by the end of the century for two different emission scenarios.…”

A Coupled Glacier‐Hydrology Model and Its Application in Eastern Pamir

“…In the east, glaciers receive most snow accumulations during summer from the East Asian and Indian monsoon systems, whereas in the west snow accumulation mostly occurs in winter and spring through westerly atmospheric circulations (Fu & Fletcher, 1985;Lutz et al, 2014;Xu, Grumbine, et al, 2009). Along with the warming climate, a great majority of glaciers have been retreating and shrinking in the past 30 years in the TP (Engelhardt et al, 2017;Gardelle et al, 2013;Salerno et al, 2008;Tawde et al, 2017;Yao et al, 2012). However, systematic differences in glacier status exist (Barandun et al, 2015;Bolch et al, 2012;Gardelle et al, 2013;Liu & Liu, 2016;Yao et al, 2012).…”