Abstract
ABSTRACTGlacier changes in the Jankar Chhu Watershed (JCW) of Chandrabhaga (Chenab) basin, Lahaul Himalaya were worked out based on Corona and Sentinel 2A images between 1971 and 2016. The JCW consists of 153 glaciers (>0.02 km2) with a total area of 185.6 ± 3.8 km2that include 82 glaciers with debris-covered ablation zone, comprising 10.9% of the total glacierized area as in 2016. Change analysis based on Corona (1971), Landsat (2000) and Sentinel 2A (2016) was restricted to 127 glaciers owing to the presence of cloud cover on 26 glaciers in 1971. A subset of glaciers was also mapped using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM; 1989) image. The total glacier area decreased by 14.7 ± 4.3 km2(0.3 ± 0.1 km2a−¹). The number of glaciers in the JCW increased by four between 1971 and 2016 due to fragmentation. More recently (2000–16), recession rate has increased. Clean-ice area decreased by 21.8 ± 3.8 km2(0.5 ± 0.1 km2a−¹) while debris-covered ice increased by 7.2 ± 0.4 km2(0.2 ± 0.01 km2a−¹). Field observations of select glaciers also support derived recession trend in the JCW. Retreat rates in the JCW have been observed to be much lower than previously reported.
Highlights
The Hindu Kush–Karakoram–Himalayan (HKH) region is the storehouse of fresh water of South Asia (Raina and Srivastava, 2008; Bajracharya and others, 2015)
All subsets were co-registered based on two operational approaches suggested by Bolch and others (2010b): (1) projective transformation was performed based on ground control points (GCPs) and the ASTER GDEM using ERDAS Imagine 14; followed by (2) spline adjustment using ESRI ArcGIS 10.2.2
The Geological Survey of India (GSI) attempted a glacier inventory based on the SoI topographic maps, aerial photographs and satellite images for the Indian Himalaya (Raina and Srivastava, 2008)
Summary
The Hindu Kush–Karakoram–Himalayan (HKH) region is the storehouse of fresh water of South Asia (Raina and Srivastava, 2008; Bajracharya and others, 2015). Recent comprehensive study by Bhambri and others (2017) reported that the number of surge-type glaciers in the Karakoram have increased significantly. This asymmetrical behavior of the Karakoram glaciers could be attributed to regional topography (Scherler and others, 2011a, b), regional climate (Bashir and others, 2017), glacier hypsometry (Gardelle and others, 2012; Brun and others, 2017), the characteristics and thickness of supraglacial debris cover (Scherler and others, 2011a) and their morphological properties (Salerno and others, 2017). Multi-temporal and multi-spectral remotely sensed images are being used to detect changes in glacier area (Bhambri and others, 2011), length or terminus position (Bhambri and others, 2012), velocity (Kraaijenbrink and others, 2016) and thickness (Bolch and others, 2008) with large spatial scale at regular temporal intervals. Field investigation and measurement becomes an indispensable element of glaciology to overcome the uncertainties and speculations derived from the remotely sensed satellite datasets (Hubbard and Glasser, 2005)
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