Abstract
The Himalayan glaciers provide water to a large population in south Asia for a variety of purposes and ecosystem services. As a result, regional monitoring of glacier melting and identification of the drivers are important for understanding and predicting future cryospheric melting trends. Using multi-date satellite images from 2000 to 2020, we investigated the shrinkage, snout retreat, thickness changes, mass loss and velocity changes of 77 glaciers in the Drass basin, western Himalaya, India. During this period, the total glacier cover has shrunk by 5.31 ± 0.33 km2. The snout retreat ranged from 30 to 430m (mean 155 ± 9.58m). Debris cover had a significant impact on glacier melting, with clean glaciers losing ~ 5% more than debris-covered glaciers (~ 2%). The average thickness change and mass loss of glacier have been - 1.27 ± 0.37 and - 1.08 ± 0.31m w.e.a-1, respectively. Because of the continuous melting and the consequent mass loss, average glacier velocity has reduced from 21.35 ± 3.3m a-1 in 2000 to 16.68 ± 1.9m a-1 by 2020. During the observation period, the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs), black carbon (BC) and other pollutants from vehicular traffic near the glaciers increased significantly. Increasing temperatures, caused by a significant increase in GHGs, black carbon and other pollutants in the atmosphere, are driving glacier melting in the study area. If the current trend continues in the future, the Himalayan glaciers may disappear entirely, having a significant impact on regional water supplies, hydrological processes, ecosystem services and transboundary water sharing.
Highlights
Cryosphere constitutes an important components of the Earth’s natural system in the Himalaya (Lemke et al 2007; Barry and Gan 2011) called as the world’s ‘third pole’
In order to assess the trend of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and their impact on glacier shrinkage and recession in the study area, we examined the temporal trends of CO2, O3, NO2, CH4, and atmospheric water vapour using a time series of satellite data, of varying period during 2002-2020, from the gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT), Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder (AIRS), and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) satellites (Table 1)
The analysis further revealed that the clean glaciers (CGs) numbering 54 recessed faster (5.11%) than the debris covered glaciers (DCGs) numbering 23 (1.79%) suggesting that the debris-cover significantly alters the thermal regime of the surface, which in turn influences the process of ablation beneath the debris layer (Table 3)
Summary
Cryosphere constitutes an important components of the Earth’s natural system in the Himalaya (Lemke et al 2007; Barry and Gan 2011) called as the world’s ‘third pole’. Melting of the Himalayan glaciers contributes to the sea-level rise and increasing frequency of glacier hazards like GLOFs (Glacial Lake Outburst Floods), avalanches, landslides and permafrost creep due to their sensitivity to climate change (Kääb et al 2006; Debella-Gilo and Kääb 2011; Snehmani et al 2014; Veh et al 2019; Thompson et al 2020; Khan et al 2021). Continuous monitoring of glacier recession and dynamics is important for observing the direct impacts of climate change on water security, water supplies, future sea levels, and glacier-related disasters. The observed thinning and melting is characterized by heterogeneity across the Himalaya (Abdullah et al 2020; Sakai and Fujita 2017; Farinotti et al 2020). To understand and explain the heterogeneous glacier response, the influence of climate change, glacier morphology and local topography, and other influencing factors has been extensively investigated Most of the studies have reported the general state of glacier recession during the past few decades across the Himalaya except for some portions in the Karakoram where glaciers have showed advance, surge, irregular behaviour and even retreat (Ren et al 2006; Bhambri et al 2011; Bolch et al 2012; Paul 2015; Chand and Sharma 2015; Murtaza et al 2021)
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