Global Assessment of Supraglacial Debris‐Cover Extents

Scherler, Dirk; Wulf, Hendrik; Gorelick, Noel

doi:10.1029/2018gl080158

Cited by 174 publications

(234 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI v6.0;RGI Consortium, 2017) includes 95,536 glaciers over HMA (regions 13, 14, and 15), covering an area of ∼97,605 ± 7,935 km 2 (assuming ∼8% uncertainty; Pfeffer et al, 2014). Approximately 11% of this glacier area and 18% of the corresponding glacier volume is debris-covered (Kraaijenbrink et al, 2017;Scherler et al, 2018). Most glaciers in the central and eastern Himalaya receive ∼80% of their annual accumulation from the summer monsoons (Bookhagen et al, 2005), while glaciers in the western Himalaya and Karakoram receive ∼60-70% from westerly extratropical cyclones (Bolch et al, 2012;Kapnick et al, 2014;Maussion et al, 2014;Cannon et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic, Regional Assessment of High Mountain Asia Glacier Mass Balance

et al. 2020

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High-mountain Asia (HMA) constitutes the largest glacierized region outside of the Earth's polar regions. Although available observations are limited, long-term records indicate sustained HMA glacier mass loss since ∼1850, with accelerated loss in recent decades. Recent satellite data capture the spatial variability of this mass loss, but spatial resolution is coarse and some estimates for regional and HMA-wide mass loss disagree. To address these issues, we generated 5,797 high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) from available sub-meter commercial stereo imagery (DigitalGlobe WorldView-1/2/3 and GeoEye-1) acquired over HMA glaciers from 2007 to 2018 (primarily 2013-2017). We also reprocessed 28,278 ASTER DEMs over HMA from 2000 to 2018. We combined these observations to generate robust elevation change trend maps and geodetic mass balance estimates for 99% of HMA glaciers between 2000 and 2018. We estimate total HMA glacier mass change of −19.0 ± 2.5 Gt yr −1 (−0.19 ± 0.03 m w.e. yr −1 ). We document the spatial pattern of HMA glacier mass change with unprecedented detail, and present aggregated estimates for HMA glacierized sub-regions and hydrologic basins. Our results offer improved estimates for the HMA contribution to global sea level rise in recent decades with total cumulative sea-level rise contribution of ∼0.7 mm from exorheic basins between 2000 and 2018. We estimate that the range of excess glacier meltwater runoff due to negative glacier mass balance in each basin constitutes ∼12-53% of the total basin-specific glacier meltwater runoff. These results can be used for calibration and validation of glacier mass balance models, satellite gravimetry observations, and hydrologic models needed for present and future water resource management.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic, Regional Assessment of High Mountain Asia Glacier Mass Balance

et al. 2020

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“…6f). These results suggest that regional geographic variability of debris cover, that is likely influenced by geological conditions, together with trends in 280 warming and precipitation over the past few decades, influenced the overall distribution of proglacial and supraglacial lake area in their current states across HMA (Haritashya et al, 2018;Scherler et al, 2018;Dan and CLAGUE, 2011;Bo et al, 2019). text are labelled.…”

Section: Influencing Factors Of Current Distribution Of Glacial Lakesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Annual 30-meter Dataset for Glacial Lakes in High Mountain Asia from 2008 to 2017

Chen¹,

Zhang²,

Guo³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Climate change is intensifying glacier melting and lake development in High Mountain Asia (HMA), which could increase glacial lake outburst flood hazards and impact water resource and hydroelectric power management. However, quantification of variability in size and type of glacial lakes at high resolution has been incomplete in HMA. Here, we developed a HMA Glacial Lake Inventory (Hi-MAG) database to characterize the annual coverage of glacial lakes from 2008 20 to 2017 at 30 m resolution using Landsat satellite imagery. It is noted that a rapid increase in lake number and moderate area expansion was influenced by a large population of small glacial lake (≤0.04km 2 ), and faster growth in lake number occurred above 5300 m elevation. Proglacial lake dominated areas showed significant lake area expansion, while unconnected lake dominated areas exhibited stability or slight reduction. Small glacial lakes accounted for approximately 15% of the lake area in Eastern Hindu Kush, Western Himalaya, Northern/Western Tien Shan, and Gangdise Mountains, but contributed >50% of 25 lake area expansion in these regions over a decade. Our results demonstrate proglacial lakes are a main contributor while small glacial lakes are an overlooked element to recent lake evolution in HMA. Regional geographic variability of debris cover, together with trends in warming and precipitation over the past few decades, largely explain the current distribution of supra-and proglacial lake area across HMA. The Hi-MAG database are available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3700282 (Chen et al., 2020), it can be used for studies on glacier-climate-lake interactions, glacio-hydrologic models, glacial lake 30 outburst floods and potential downstream risks and water resources.

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“…The importance of these glaciers for regional water resources via temporarily storing and releasing water at various time scales has long been recognized [1][2][3][4]9]. In particular, the Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings host a large number of debris-covered glaciers [10][11][12][13] on which the ablation zone is extensively covered by supraglacial debris with different thicknesses. It is well known that debris cover can enhance or attenuate ice melt rates compared to bare ice, depending on its thickness [14,15], called the debris-cover effect [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The spatial distribution of debris cover can largely influence the structure of the glacier's hydrological system and its evolution by controlling melt rate and its spatial pattern [16][17][18][19], with important implications for the catchment runoff [16,18,20]. Note that the extent of supraglacial debris cover is likely to increase with glacier shrinkage [11,21]. Analysis of one basin of the Nepal Himalayas found that the debris-covered ice provides much more meltwater to the total runoff [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, debris cover and its spatial distribution on debris-covered glaciers have a crucial influence on catchment glaciological and hydrological processes via changing the spatial patterns of meltwater generation, largely increasing the complexity of glaciological and hydrological simulations in the catchment. Although the extent of supraglacial debris cover can be derived from satellite imagery [11,22], the thickness of debris cover is difficult to determine at a large scale. Consequently, the debris-cover effect is generally considered simply in current glacio-hydrological models through using a multiplicative reduction factor or different melt factors for debris-covered surfaces [3,[23][24][25][26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Debris Cover in Catchment Runoff: A Case Study of the Hailuogou Catchment, South-Eastern Tibetan Plateau

Zhang

Liu

et al. 2019

Water

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Runoff from high-elevation, debris-covered glaciers is a crucial water supply in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surroundings, where insufficient debris thickness data make it difficult to analyze its influence. Here, we investigated the role of debris cover in runoff formation of the Hailuogou catchment in the south-eastern Tibetan Plateau for the 1988–2017 period, based on long-term observations combined with a physically based glacio-hydrological model. The catchment is characterized by extensive thin debris on the ablation zones of three debris-covered glaciers. An increasing trend in catchment runoff has been observed in the past three decades, more than 50% of which is attributed to glacier runoff in the last decade. With the exception of the influence of temperature rising and precipitation decreasing, our results underline the importance of debris cover and its spatial features in the glaciological and hydrological processes of the catchment, in which the acceleration effect of debris cover is dominant in the catchment. An experimental analysis indicated that the extraordinary excess meltwater in the catchment is generated from the debris-covered surface, especially the lower elevation region below 3600 m a.s.l.

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Global Assessment of Supraglacial Debris‐Cover Extents

Cited by 174 publications

References 38 publications

A Systematic, Regional Assessment of High Mountain Asia Glacier Mass Balance

A Systematic, Regional Assessment of High Mountain Asia Glacier Mass Balance

Annual 30-meter Dataset for Glacial Lakes in High Mountain Asia from 2008 to 2017

The Role of Debris Cover in Catchment Runoff: A Case Study of the Hailuogou Catchment, South-Eastern Tibetan Plateau

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