Anthropogenic climate change drives melting of glaciers in the Himalaya

Abstract

The Himalayan glaciers supply water to a large population in south Asia for various uses and ecosystem services. Therefore, regional monitoring of glacier melting and identifying the drivers thereof is important to understand and predict the future trends of cryospheric melting. Using multi-date satellite images from 2000-2020, we investigated the shrinkage, snout retreat, thickness changes, mass loss and velocity changes of 77 glaciers in the Drass basin, western Himalaya, India. The overall glacier cover has shrunk by 5.31±0.33 km 2 during the period. Snout retreat varied between 30-430 m (mean 155±9.58 m). Debriscover showed a signi cant in uence on the glacier melting with the clean glaciers showing a higher loss of ~5% compared to the debris-covered glaciers (~2%). The glaciers on an average have shown thickness change and mass loss of -1.27±0.37 and -1.08±0.31 m w.e.a -1 respectively. Average glacier velocity has reduced from 21.35±3.3 m a -1 in 2000 to 16.68±1.9 m a -1 by 2020 due to the continuous melting and the consequent mass loss of the glaciers. Concentration of the greenhouse gases (GHGs), black carbon and other pollutants from vehicular tra c plying in the vicinity of the glaciers has signi cantly increased during the observation period. Increasing temperatures, result of the signi cant increase of the GHGs and pollutants in the atmosphere, drive the glacier melting in the study area. If the situation continues in the future, the glaciers may disappear altogether in the Himalaya leading to signi cant impact on the regional water supplies, hydrological processes, ecosystem services and transboundary sharing of waters.

Optical Properties of Fine Mode Aerosols over High-Altitude Himalayan Glacier Regions

“…Choudhary et al reported mean values of −3.90 and 22.6 W/g for scattering and absorption, respectively, for five locations (Kathmandu, Godavari, Lulang, Nam Co, and NCO-P) in the Himalayan cryosphere, which were 1.3 times lower than the values obtained in the present study. A study on glacier melting rates in the Himalayan region indicated that the glacier area has experienced a reduction of approximately 3% over the past two decades (2000–2020), suggesting a loss of glacier ice coverage within the study period. Glacier melting in the Himalayas is a complex phenomenon influenced by various factors, and the presence of atmospheric aerosols is one important reason behind this retreat.…”

The Evolution, Expression Patterns, and Domestication Selection Analysis of the Annexin Gene Family in the Barley Pan-Genome

“…Climate change, as a major contributor to both biotic and abiotic stressors, establishes a strong intrinsic link with agriculture, leading to adverse impacts on agricultural production within a given region. Climate change affects agriculture in various ways, such as changes in rainfall, fluctuations in soil temperature, pests, atmospheric ozone, and CO 2 levels, and the melting of glaciers [33]. These changes have a negative impact on global crop production, posing a serious threat to global food security.…”

Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Hazard and Risk Assessment of Gangabal Lake in the Upper Jhelum Basin of Kashmir Himalaya Using Geospatial Technology and Hydrodynamic Modeling

“…Local displacements among the satellite images (pre-and post-event) with different spatial resolutions can be obtained through the Cosi-Corr software [92] and have been extensively used for velocity estimation in various glaciated regions of the world [93][94][95][96][97]. The method coregisters optical satellite images and correlates them to determine the resulting displacement.…”

“…As illustrated in Figure 10, a significant variation in velocity and flow was observed across the glacier (accumulation zone, ablation zone, terminus). Several studies have carried the glacier surface velocity using satellite images at the catchment level [33,93,94,146] and on individual glaciers across the Himalayan region [147][148][149]. Garg et al [150] have studied the glacier surface velocity of the Sakchum, Chota Shigri, and Bara Shigri glaciers, revealing an average velocity of 10.2, 20.9, and 25.3 m/yr, respectively, using ASTER images.…”