Paper Number: 3623
Reconstructing glacier change post Little Ice Age (LIA) in the Northwestern Himalaya, India: an overview and specific examples
Chand, P.1, Sharma, M.C.1 and Kumar, S.2
1Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India and pritamiirs@gmail.com
2 Here Maps Pvt Ltd., Gurgaon, Haryana, India
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The Himalaya comprises one of the largest glacier-covered areas outside the polar-regions. Several studies reported that Himalayan glaciers responded to the global cooling associated with the Little Ice Age (LIA), however, there is no realistic estimate to suggest how the recession occurred after the termination of this globally important climatic event with few exceptions. Besides, the pattern of deglaciation following the LIA is important towards understanding the role of natural verses anthropogenic contribution in glaciers response, considering significant debate pertaining to the rising global temperature and its likely impact on the mountain glaciers (Hartmann et al., 2013). Thus, the present study document, analyse and reconstruction the fluctuation of index glacier (based on glacier location, size, geometry, characterise of debris cover and their geomorphology) located in the North-Western Himalaya since LIA maximum advance using historical records, repeated photographs, remote sensing data and field observations including geomorphological evidence. Preliminary results show an advance in glacier terminus during the late 18th-early 19th century. After mid-19th century, general state of glacier retreat has been observed for the studied glaciers in this region with varying recession rate from one glacier to other. The advance of studied glaciers in the late 18th-early 19th century can be attributed to cold climate whereas recession trend from mid-19th century associated with rising temperature and reducing precipitation in the north-western Himalaya as same observed from reanalysis data and field data and same reported by previous studies based on filed based. Moreover, the varying retreat rate between glaciers can be attributed to the influences of topographical factors, individual glacier morphology and the nature of debris cover. Further analyses are under way by incorporating the glacier equilibrium line altitude (ELA) calculations, volume estimations and short to long term in-situ and geodetic glacier mass balance measurements to look into the overall response of climate and topography on the glacier dynamics in different climatic zone of this region and will be addressed.
Figure 1. Long term cumulative length changes of indexed Karakorum-Himalayan glaciers; the markers indicate the years of measurements.
References:
[1] Hartmann, D.L., Tank, A.M.G.K., Rusticucci, M., 2013. IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Climatie Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. IPCC AR5, 31 – 39.