Remote Sensing of Mountain Glaciers and Related Hazards

Mountain glaciers are highly sensitive to temperature and precipitation fluctuations and active geomorphic agents in shaping the landforms of glaciated regions which are direct imprints of past glaciations, providing reliable evidence of the evolution of the past Cryosphere and contain important information on climatic variables. But most importantly, glaciers have aroused a lot of concern in terms of glacier area changes, thickness change, mass balance and their consequences on water resources as well as related hazards. The contribution of glacier mass loss to global sea-level rise and increasing number of glacier-related hazards are the most important and current socioeconomic concerns. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of the changes and constant monitoring of glaciers are essential for studying climate, water resource management and hydropower and also to predict and evade glacier-related hazards. The recent advances in the techniques of earth observations have proved as a boon for investigating glaciers and glacier-related hazards. Remote sensing technology enables extraction of glacier parameters such as albedo/reflectance/scattering, glacier area, glacier zones and facies, equilibrium line, glacier thickness, volume, mass balance, velocity and glacier topography. The present chapter explores the prospective of remote sensing technology for understanding and surveying glaciers formed at high, inaccessible mountains and glacier-induced hazards

Spatiotemporal quantification of key environmental changes in Stok and Kang Yatze regions of Ladakh Himalaya, India

Funding Information: The authors would like to thank USGS for Corona and Landsat imageries, Planet.com for PlanetScope imagery, NASA for ASTER DEM and The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) for ERA5 reanalysis temperature and precipitation data. We are grateful to Ms. Prerna Joshi for the insights and help in this study. AB acknowledges support from Swedish Research Council (Grant 2017-05435) for his research in Ladakh region. The authors are also thankful to the editor, scientific editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their critical review of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin

Multitemporal glacier inventory revealing four decades of glacier changes in the Ladakh region

Acknowledgements The authors are thankful to the School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, for the lab facilities and the United States Geological Survey for the Landsat and ASTER imageries. The authors also thank Planet Labs and Google for the high resolution PlanetScope and Google Earth imageries. We are also thankful to the Scottish Funding Council and the University Of Aberdeen, United Kingdom for financially supporting our work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Four years of mass balance on Chhota Shigri Glacier, Himachal Pradesh, India, a new benchmark glacier in the western Himalaya

ABSTRACT. Little is known about th

An 11-year record of wintertime snow-surface energy balance and sublimation at 4863 m a.s.l. on the Chhota Shigri Glacier moraine (western Himalaya, India)

International audienceAnalysis of surface energy balance (SEB) at the glacier/snow surface is the most comprehensive way to explain the atmosphere-glacier/snow interactions, but that requires extensive data. In this study, we have analysed an 11-year (2009-2020) record of the meteorological dataset from an automatic weather station installed at 4863 ma.s.l. (above sea level) on a lateral moraine of the Chhota Shigri Glacier, western Himalaya. The study was carried out over the winter months (December to April) to understand SEB drivers and snow loses through sublimation. Furthermore, this study examines the role of cloud cover on SEB and turbulent heat fluxes. The turbulent heat fluxes were calculated using the bulk-aerodynamic method, including stability corrections. The net short-wave radiation was the primary energy source. However, the turbulent heat fluxes dissipated a significant amount of energy. The cloud cover plays an important role in limiting the incoming short-wave radiation by about 70 %. It also restricts the turbulent heat fluxes by more than 60 %, resulting in lower snow sublimation. During winter, turbulent latent heat flux contributed the largest proportion (64 %) in the total SEB, followed by net radiation (25 %) and sensible heat flux (11 %). Sublimation rates were 3 times higher in clear-sky than overcast conditions, indicating a strong role of cloud cover in shaping favourable conditions for turbulent latent heat flux by modulating the near-surface boundary layer conditions. Dry air, along with high snow-surface temperature and wind speed, favours sublimation. Besides, we also observed that strong and cold winds, possibly through mid-latitude western disturbances, impede sublimation by bringing high moisture content to the region and cooling the snow surface. The estimated snow sublimation fraction was 16 %-42 % of the total winter snowfall at the study site. This study substantiates that the snow sublimation is an essential variable to be considered in glaciohydrological modelling at the high-mountain Himalayan glacierised catchments

Landsat-based multitemporal glacier inventory data of over four decades (1977-2019) for Ladakh region

This dataset contains Landsat based multitemporal glacier inventories of the four Upper Indus sub-basins (Shayok, Suru, Leh and Zanskar) and three internal drainage basins (Tsokar, Tsomoriri and Pangong) around the Ladakh region for 1977, 1993, 2009 and 2019. The inventory includes all the glaciers (2257) of the region larger than 0.5 km2, covering an area of ~7923 ±106 km2 (equivalent to ~90% of the total glacierised area in the region). The glacier area ranges between 0.5 to 862 km2, most of which belong to the smallest size category (0.5-1 km2). More than 70% of the glaciers are north-facing (NW-N-NE) and concentrated in higher elevation zones between 5000 and 6000m a.s.l. The dataset is a product of a semi-automated approach involving a band ratio approach, manual corrections and quality check

Four years of mass balance on Chhota Shigri Glacier, Himachal Pradesh, India, a new benchmark glacier in the western Himalaya

International audienceLittle is known about the Himalayan glaciers, although they are of particular interest in terms of future water supply, regional climate change and sea-level rise. In 2002, a long-term monitoring programme was started on Chhota Shigri Glacier (32.2°N, 77.5°E; 15.7 km2, 6263-4050 m a.s.l., 9 km long) located in Lahaul and Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India. This glacier lies in the monsoon-arid transition zone (western Himalaya) which is alternately influenced by Asian monsoon in summer and the mid-latitude westerlies in winter. Here we present the results of a 4 year study of mass balance and surface velocity. Overall specific mass balances are mostly negative during the study period and vary from a minimum value of -1.4 m w.e. in 2002/03 and 2005/06 (equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) ∼5180 m a.s.l.) to a maximum value of +0.1 m w.e. in 2004/05 (ELA 4855 m a.s.l.). Chhota Shigri Glacier seems similar to mid-latitude glaciers, with an ablation season limited to the summer months and a mean vertical gradient of mass balance in the ablation zone (debris-free part) of 0.7 m w.e. (100 m)-1, similar to those reported in the Alps. Mass balance is strongly dependent on debris cover, exposure and the shading effect of surrounding steep slopes