Response of Karakoram‐Himalayan glaciers to climate variability and climatic change: A regional climate model assessment

Abstract

The Karakoram and the Himalayan mountain range accommodate a large number of glaciers and are the major source of several perennial rivers downstream. To interactively describe to response of glaciers to climate change, a glacier parameterization scheme has been developed and implemented into the regional climate model REMO. The scheme simulates the mass balance as well as changes of the areal extent of glaciers on a subgrid scale. The parameterization scheme is for the first time applied to the region. A regional glacier inventory is compiled and is used to initialize glacier area and volume. Over the highly complex and data sparse region, the simulated mass balance largely agrees with observations including the positive Karakoram anomaly. The simulated equilibrium line altitude is well captured although a systematic underestimation is apparent. REMO simulates the glacier‐climate interaction reasonably well; it has clear potential to be used for future climate assessments.

A Hydrometeorological Perspective on the Karakoram Anomaly Using Unique Valley‐Based Synoptic Weather Observations

“…Existence of this anomalous behavior, particularly in the Karakoram ranges (Armstrong, 2010;Bolch et al, 2012;Cogley, 2012Cogley, , 2016Fowler & Archer, 2006;Gardelle et al, 2012;Hewitt, 2007;Immerzeel et al, 2015;Immerzeel et al, 2012;Kapnick et al, 2014;Kozhikkodan Veettil et al, 2016;Kumar et al, 2015;Morgan, 2014;Mukhopadhyay et al, 2014;Quincey et al, 2011;Rankl et al, 2014;Smiraglia et al, 2007;Soncini et al, 2015;Tahir et al, 2011), could perhaps be thought of as a simple matter of "cause" (temperature) and "effect" (melting) (Hewitt, 2014), especially since Karakoram temperatures have remained out of phase with hemispheric temperature trends for the past five centuries (Zafar et al, 2016). However, interpretation of the Karakoram anomaly has been complicated by the lack of long-term field programs focusing on glacier mass balance and by a scarcity of up-to-date, near-glacier climate data (Gardelle et al, 2012).…”

Modelling 60 years of glacier mass balance and runoff for Chhota Shigri Glacier, Western Himalaya, Northern India

“…The REgional atmosphere MOdel (REMO) simulations were integrated over the South Asia domain (see Kumar and others, 2015). The performance of REMO in this region was evaluated in several studies (Jacob and others, 2012; Saeed and others, 2012;Kumar and others, 2015). The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model (version 3.7.1) simulations were performed over a domain centered on Chhota Shigri Glacier.…”

“…Glacier retreat and changes in the associated streamflow regime are therefore expected to have great socio-economic effect on populated areas that are dependent on glacier meltwater as water storage (Jones, 1999), especially in the Himalayan mountains (Sharma and others, 2000;Bolch and others, 2012;Immerzeel and others, 2013). The Himalayas and the adjacent Tibetan Plateau are the source of three major river systems in South Asia: Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra. Due to limited accessibility and lack of observational data in glacierized regions of the Himalaya (Immerzeel and others, 2010; Kumar and others, 2015; Shea and others, 2015) glaciohydrological modelling is a challenging task. Many key processes such as orographic precipitation gradients, glacier melt under debris cover and spatial and temporal variations of meteorological variables are poorly understood (Viviroli and others, 2011;Ragettli and others, 2013).…”

Mapping the suitability for ice-core drilling of glaciers in the European Alps and the Asian High Mountains

“…NAO and ENSO were already detected from isotopic composition in several Tibetan Plateau ice cores (Joswiak and others, 2013;Yang and others, 2014;Du and others, 2016). In this context, ice-core records are fundamental for modelling the impacts of NAO and ENSO on regional and global circulation patterns (Kumar and others, 2015;Dixit and Tandon, 2016). This is important because NAO and ENSO have strong effects on mid-latitude circulation patterns that impact large regions of the planet (Brönnimann and others, 2006;Müller and Roeckner, 2006;Donat and others, 2014;Whan and Zwiers, 2017).…”