Different region climate regimes and topography affect the changes in area and mass balance of glaciers on the north and south slopes of the same glacierized massif (the West Nyainqentanglha Range, Tibetan Plateau)

Abstract

This project launched a comparative study to investigate the areas of the Zhadang glacier (on the leeward slope/north slope of the West Nyainqentanglha Range, Tibetan Plateau) and the Gurenhekou glacier (on the windward slope/south slope) for nearly 40 years (1970–2007) and measure the mass balance of the two glaciers for three (2005–2008) and four (2004–2008) mass balance years, respectively. Results show that, in 1970–2007, overall annual precipitation decreased slightly caused by the weakening Indian monsoon and strengthened westerlies and annual mean air temperatures increased gradually in the areas to the north and south of the West Nyainqentanglha Range, respectively, resulting in the areas of the two glaciers reduced over the last nearly four decades. The rate of air temperature increase in the north is higher than that in the south. Moreover, mean annual precipitation in the south exceeds that in the north, due to the weakening of the Indian Monsoon activities across the West Nyainqentanglha Range. As a result, the area decrease of Zhadang glacier in the north slope of the West Nyainqentanglha Range is more intensive than that of Gurenhekou glacier in the south slope. Results also show that these two small glaciers experienced gradual reduction of the mass loss during the observation period of 2005–2008 and 2004–2008, and exhibited positive mass balances in 2008, possibly resulting from increases of annual precipitation and decreases in mean annual air temperatures, especially the lowering of air temperatures and the notably increasing of precipitation during the ablation period in 2006–2008. However, the mass balances of the two glaciers differed considerably. The differences in mass balance between the glaciers appear closely related to local climatic factors (different local moisture recycling and different seasonal distributions of precipitation) and glacier topography (the leeward/windward slopes and different elevations of the accumulation and ablations zones). Interestingly, the mass balances in the final year of our study period (2007/2008) for these two glaciers are much more similar, although they differed during the first year (2005/2006), resulting from differences between their annual precipitation trends. Observations indicate that changes in either the air temperature or precipitation will drive mass balance changes for the two glaciers, and the changes in the mass balance will directly affect the local water resource. These findings will provide important data for hydrological modelling of glacierized catchments and local water resource management strategies.