Abstract
Evaluating the impacts of climatic changes and morphometric features on glacier mass balance is crucial to providing insight into glacier changes and their effects on regional water resources and ecosystems. Here, we presented an evaluation of morphometric effects on the glacier mass balances of the Puruogangri ice field (PIF) on the Tibetan Plateau. A clear spatial variability of glacier mass balances, ranging from −0.035 to +0.019 m·w.e.·year−1, was estimated by comparing the TanDEM-X DEM (2012) with the SRTM-X DEM (2000). In general, the observed glacier mass changes were consistent with our fieldwork investigations. Furthermore, by applying the method of linear regression analysis, we found that the mass changes of individual glaciers on the PIF were mainly dominated by the mean altitude (R = 0.84, p < 0.001), however, they were statistically independent of glacier size, aspect, and surface velocity. At a local scale (grid size of 10 × 10 pixels), apart from the factor of altitude, surface velocity was correlated with glacier mass change.
Highlights
Mountain glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surroundings play a key role in the water and food security of people living in eastern and southern Asia because these glaciers are located at the headwaters of many prominent Asian rivers [1,2]
We aim to evaluate the morphometric effects on glacier mass balances of the Puruogangri ice field (PIF) on the central TP, which is the largest modern ice field on the Tibetan Plateau
Overall, according to the results of statistical analysis at different scales, we found that the observed spatially variable glacier mass changes might be related with the morphometric factors of altitude and velocity
Summary
Mountain glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surroundings play a key role in the water and food security of people living in eastern and southern Asia because these glaciers are located at the headwaters of many prominent Asian rivers [1,2]. The mass balance of mountain glaciers is controlled by regional climate variability and local morphometric factors [3]. Previous research suggested that there are several effective morphometric factors of glacier mass balances on the TP and its surroundings, such as topographic characteristics (i.e., glacier size, altitude, surface slope, curvature and aspect) [19,20,21], ice surface dynamics [22,23], and debris covers [24,25]. The local-scale behavior of glacier mass changes is influenced by multiple morphometric factors and is not fully understood on the Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings [2], on the central TP, where few investigations have been conducted. The entire ice field was gridded with a size of 10 × 10 pixels to further estimate the morphometric effect on glacier mass changes at a more local scale
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