Hydrology of debris-covered glaciers in High Mountain Asia

Miles, Katie E.; Hubbard, Bryn; Irvine‐Fynn, Tristram; Miles, Evan; Quincey, Duncan J.; Rowan, Ann V.

doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103212

Cited by 49 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 204 publications

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“…Additionally, many HMA glaciers are debris-mantled resulting from avalanches, landslides and rockfall from adjacent mountains, melt-out of englacial debris and thrusting from the glacier bed. This debris cover is often thicker in the ablation zone [53], limiting the ability to distinguish between the glacier termini and the pro-glacial landscape in satellite imagery. This restricted surge identification in the early stages of surge-related terminus advance.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote Detection of Surge-Related Glacier Terminus Change across High Mountain Asia

et al. 2021

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High Mountain Asia (HMA) hosts the largest glacier concentration outside of polar regions. It is also distinct glaciologically as it forms one of two major surge clusters globally, and many glaciers there contradict the globally observed glacier recession trend. Surging glaciers are critical to our understanding of HMA glacier dynamics, threshold behaviour and flow instability, and hence have been the subject of extensive research, yet many dynamical uncertainties remain. Using the cloud-based geospatial data platform, Google Earth Engine (GEE) and GEE-developed tool, GEEDiT, to identify and quantify trends in the distribution and phenomenological characteristics of surging glaciers synoptically across HMA, we identified 137 glaciers as surging between 1987–2019. Of these, 55 were newly identified, 15 glaciers underwent repeat surges, and 18 were identified with enhanced glaciological hazard potential, most notably from Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs). Terminus position time series analysis from 1987–2019 facilitated the development of a six-part phenomenological classification of glacier behaviour, as well as quantification of surge variables including active phase duration, terminus advance distance and rate, and surge periodicity. This research demonstrates the application of remote sensing techniques and the GEE platform to develop our understanding of surging glacier distribution and terminus phenomenology across large areas, as well as their ability to highlight potential geohazard locations, which can subsequently be used to focus monitoring efforts.

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Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote Detection of Surge-Related Glacier Terminus Change across High Mountain Asia

et al. 2021

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“…At this location, debris-cover evolution, as well as surface meltwater, played a role in how the surface changed over time. While hydrological processes are not explicitly discussed here, meltwater can add significantly to the complexity of surface evolution; for example, see review by Miles et al (2020) for a discussion of hydrology in relation to debris-covered glaciers in High Mountain Asia. However, if a glacier is near stagnation there may be only minimal changes over time.…”

Section: Contextualizing Debris-covered Ice On Mars With Debris-cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualizing lobate debris aprons and glacier-like forms on Mars with debris-covered glaciers on Earth

Koutnik

Pathare

2021

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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Debris-covered glaciers from around the world offer distinct environmental, climatic, and historical conditions from which to study the effects of debris on glacier-ice evolution. A rich literature on debris-covered glaciers exists from decades of field work, laboratory studies, remote-sensing observations, and numerical modeling. In general, the base of knowledge established by studying periglacial, glacial, and paraglacial landforms on Earth has been applied to aid interpretation of ice-rich or ice-remnant landforms on Mars, but research has progressed on both planets. For Mars, the spatial distribution of lobate debris aprons and glacier-like forms, in particular, is critical to constraining past climate conditions when such features were active, reconstructing past ice extent, and estimating the total inventory of buried ice remaining in the mid-latitudes of Mars. This review spans a range of knowledge about debris-covered glaciers on Earth, in order to add context to investigations of dust and debris-covered ice on Mars and to put research on both planets in a perspective aimed at maximizing process-based understanding of glacier evolution. The state of knowledge and some gaps in knowledge on Mars are discussed in relation to possible avenues for future research in how landforms are classified, advances in comparative planetology, and new understanding from future missions. While this review is focused primarily on processes controlling active debris-covered glaciers, a key to understanding glacier change through time is to consider individual landforms in context with the full-system environment in which they are found. For Earth, this includes understanding local and regional controls on current glacier change, and how these processes relate to landform development in the past as well as what may develop in the future. For Mars, this includes evaluating how present-day landforms elucidate past ice activity and environmental conditions during epochs when orbital parameters, climate, and water ice distribution were substantially different.

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“…Ice cliffs and supraglacial ponds, in particular, are local 'hot spots' for glacier downwasting due to enhanced heat absorption at the surface of these features (Ragettli et al, 2016;Miles et al, 2016;Sakai et al, 2000). Understanding their distribution and dynamics on the glacier surface is essential for a proper understanding of glacier hydrology, notably to simulate ablation rates and meltwater production using a variety of ice melt models (Reid and Brock, 2010;Foster et al, 2012;Miles et al, 2020). Second, the current distribution and fluctuation of pro-glacial lakes as well as and supraglacial pond extents is also of interest for assessing glacier-related hazards.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface composition of debris-covered glaciers across the Himalaya using spectral unmixing and multi-sensor imagery

Racoviteanu¹,

Nicholson²,

Glasser³

2021

Preprint

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Abstract. The Hindu-Kush Himalaya mountain range is characterized by highly glacierized, complex, dynamic topography. The ablation area of these glaciers is often covered a highly heterogeneous debris cover mantle comprising ponds, steep and shallow slopes of various aspects, variable debris thickness and exposed ice cliffs. These surface elements are associated with differing ice ablation rates, and understanding the composition of the glacier surface is essential for a proper understanding of glacier hydrology and glacier-related hazards. Here we use high-resolution Pleiades (2 m) and RapidEye imagery (5 m) combined with Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI) imagery (30 m) to estimate the composition of debris-covered glacier tongues across the Himalaya around the year 2015. We use linear spectral unmixing to map various types of debris, clean ice, supraglacial ponds and vegetation on debris-covered glaciers across the mountain range. We develop the spectral unmixing methods in the Khumbu region of eastern Nepal, and then apply them over the entire Himalaya (a glacier area of 2,254 km2). This allowed us to convert 30 m fractional maps into finer classification maps and to estimate the composition of debris-covered glaciers at various spatial scales. Debris-covered glaciers across the mountain range comprised 2.1 % supraglacial ponds, 12.8 % dark debris, 60.9 % light debris and 4.5 % supra glacial vegetation, with negligible amounts of clean ice and clouds and unclassified areas. Supraglacial ponds were more prevalent in the monsoon-influenced central-eastern Himalaya (up to 4 % of the debris cover area) compared to the monsoon-dry transition zone (only 0.3 %). The automated fractional supraglacial pond maps developed here serve to complement and improve the accuracy of existing regional lake datasets. They also provide a basis for exploring the turbidity of lakes and ponds as indicators of glacier change processes, and to monitor the evolution of ponds in the context of glacial hazards.

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Hydrology of debris-covered glaciers in High Mountain Asia

Cited by 49 publications

References 204 publications

Remote Detection of Surge-Related Glacier Terminus Change across High Mountain Asia

Remote Detection of Surge-Related Glacier Terminus Change across High Mountain Asia

Contextualizing lobate debris aprons and glacier-like forms on Mars with debris-covered glaciers on Earth

Surface composition of debris-covered glaciers across the Himalaya using spectral unmixing and multi-sensor imagery

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