Glacier fluctuations between 1975 and 2008 in the Greater Himalaya Range of Zanskar, southern Ladakh

Abstract

Glaciers in the Himalaya are often heavily covered with supraglacial debris, making them difficult to study with remotely-sensed imagery alone. Various methods such as band ratios can be used effectively to map clean-ice glaciers; however, a thicker layer of debris often makes it impossible to distinguish between supraglacial debris and the surrounding terrain. Previously, a morphometric mapping approach employing an ASTER-derived digital elevation model has been used to map glaciers in the Khumbu Himal and the Tien Shan. This study on glaciers in the Greater Himalaya Range in Zanskar, southern Ladakh, aims (i) to use the morphometric approach to map large debris-covered glaciers; and (ii) to use Landsat and ASTER data and GPS and field measurements to document glacier change over the past four decades. Field work was carried out in the summers of 2008. For clean ice, band ratios from the ASTER dataset were used to distinguish glacial features. For debris-covered glaciers, topographic features such as slope were combined with thermal imagery and supervised classifiers to map glacial margins. The method is promising for large glaciers, although problems occurred in the distal and lateral parts and in the fore field of the glaciers. A multitemporal analysis of glaciers in Zanskar showed that in general they have receded since at least the mid-to late-1970s. However, some few glaciers that advanced or oscillated -probably because of specific local environmental conditions -do exist.

Spatial patterns in glacier characteristics and area changes from 1962 to 2006 in the Kanchenjunga–Sikkim area, eastern Himalaya

“…A new Landsat-based inventory has been complied using imagery from 1999 to 2003 that, along with the current study, may help improve the accuracy in some areas of RGI (Nuimura et al, 2014). Some other regional glacier inventories have been constructed in the past, for example for the western part of the Himalaya (e.g., Kamp et al, 2011;Bhambri et al, 2011;Frey et al, 2012), but only a few are available for the eastern extremity of the Himalaya (e.g., Krishna, 2005;Basnett et al, 2013;Bajracharya et al, 2014;Kulkarni and Narain, 1990). The use of remote sensing for glacier mapping in this area is limited by frequent cloud cover and sensor saturation due to unsuitable gain settings and the persistence of seasonal snow, which hampers quality satellite image acquisition.…”

“…In the last decades, the availability of low-cost data from optical remote sensing platforms with global coverage provided opportunities for glacier mapping at regional scales. Remote sensing techniques have considerably helped improve estimates of glacier area changes (Bhambri et al, 2010;Bolch, 2007;Bajracharya et al, 2007;Kamp et al, 2011;Bolch et al, 2008a), glacier lake changes (Bajracharya et al, 2007;Bolch et al, 2008b;Gardelle et al, 2011;Wessels et al, 2002) and region-wide glacier mass balance Bolch et al, 2011;Gardelle et al, 2013;Kääb et al, 2012), but significant gaps do remain. The new global Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) v.4 (Pfeffer et al, 2014) provides a global data set of glacier outlines intended for largescale studies; however, in some regions the quality varies and the outlines may not be suitable for detailed regional analysis of glacier parameters.…”

Assessment of Recent Glacier Changes and Its Controlling Factors from 1976 to 2011 in Baspa Basin, Western Himalaya

“…Generally, the Himalayan glaciers are losing an average of 0.4% of area per year (Bolch et al, 2010(Bolch et al, , 2012Bhambri et al, 2011;Kamp et al, 2011;Kulkarni et al, 2011, Chand andSharma, 2015). However, in Xiongcaigangri and neighboring areas, glaciers have retreated less (Brahmbhatt et al, 2015;Li et al, 2015).…”

Estimation of Glacier Mass Balance on a Basin Scale:An Approach Based on Satellite-Derived Snowlines and a Temperature Index Model

“…The water availability can be affected due to current and future climate change [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] . This can affect biodiversity and ecosystems of the region 12 .…”