Contrasting behaviour of temporal glacier changes and long term estimation of glacier mass balance across Himalayan–Karakoram range

Abstract

Glacier dynamics and mass balance observations in Himalayan–Karakoram (H–K) region are important to monitor the effect of climatic perturbations over the highest cryospheric region of the world. Such studies can be accomplished by employing satellite based remote sensing technique as field measurements are difficult to obtain in these inaccessible region. In the present study, an attempt was made to investigate the retreat/advancement along with their mass fluctuations of 13 select glaciers from different sectors of H–K region over a continuous period from year 1996 to 2020 using satellite images. Variation in areal and snout fluctuations shown different patterns pertaining to gain/advancement and loss/retreat of each select glaciers. Mass loss for glaciers in Karakoram Range (–0.217 ± 0.017 m w e) was marginal when compared with Western (–0.26 ± 0.08 m w e), Central (–0.56 ± 0.067 m w e) and Eastern Himalayas (–0.625 ± 0.13 m w e). Contrasting relationship between glacier dynamics and mass balance has been obtained in the present study. Validation of results with existing field observations depicted the utility of satellite-based observation.