Glacier mass budget and climate reanalysis data indicate a climatic shift around 2000 in Lahaul-Spiti, western Himalaya
Abstract
While glacier mass changes in the Himalaya since the year 2000 are relatively well investigated, there is still a lack of knowledge about the long-term changes and their climatic drivers. We use historical and recent remote sensing data to study glacier changes of the Lahaul-Spiti region in western Himalaya, India, over the last four decades (1971–2013). The glaciers were losing mass moderately between 1971 and 1999 (− 0.07 ± 0.1 m w.e. year−1) while the losses have increased significantly after 2000 (− 0.30 ± 0.1 m w.e. year−1). During both periods, the debris-covered glaciers and glaciers having pro-glacial lakes lost more mass than glaciers with little debris cover. Mass changes of Chhota Shigri, a benchmark glacier, closely matched the average of the overall study area. Analysis of gridded climate data covering the period 1948–2015 shows that the mean annual air temperature increased, especially since 1995. One dataset shows a significant increase in summer temperature after 2000 while others do not show any trend. The mean annual precipitation started decreasing around 1995 and reached a minimum around 2000, after which it increased again. One dataset shows a significant decrease in winter precipitation after 2000 while the others show no trend. The climate data indicate that the increase in mean annual temperature from 1995, combined with no significant trend/significant decrease of winter precipitation in the period after 2000, has probably resulted in accelerated mass loss of the glaciers.
Keywords
Lahaul-Spiti, Indian Himalaya US spy satellite image Glacier changes Geodetic mass balance Climate reanalysis data Climatic trendNotes
Acknowledgements
KM acknowledges the personal communications of M. Chen for PREC/L data, C. Smith for NCEP/NCAR data and S Nair for Cartosat data. AB acknowledges AvH foundation for supporting his research at TU Dresden. SG acknowledges NIT Silchar for providing Cartosat data. The authors are grateful for the proofread by B. A. Robson and for the constructive comments by the anonymous reviewers, which helped to improve the quality of the manuscript.
Author contributions
KM, AB and TB designed the study and discussed the results. AB generated all the DTMs and some figures. TP supported the DTM generation and SRTM penetration correction analysis. SG provided Cartosat-1 data and identified some sources for climate data. KM performed all analysis and wrote the draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to its final form.
Supplementary material
References
- Arendt AA, Bliss A, Bolch T et al (2015) Randolph Glacier Inventory—a dataset of global glacier outlines: Version 5.0. GLIMS Technical Report. National Snow and Ice Data Centre. Boulder. USAGoogle Scholar
- Azam MF, Wagnon P, Ramanathan AL et al (2012) From balance to imbalance: a shift in the dynamic behaviour of Chhota Shigri glacier, western Himalaya, India. J Glaciol 58(208):315–324CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Azam MF, Wagnon P, Vincent C et al (2014) Reconstruction of the annual mass balance of Chhota Shigri glacier, Western Himalaya, India, since 1969. Ann Glaciol 55(66):1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Banerjee A (2017) Thinning of debris-covered and debris-free glaciers in a warming climate. Cryosphere 11:133–138CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bao X, Zhang F (2013) Evaluation of NCEP-CFSR, NCEP/NCAR, ERA-Interim, and ERA-40 reanalysis datasets against independent sounding observations over the Tibetan Plateau. J Clim 26:206–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Basnett S, Kulkarni AV, Bolch T (2013) The influence of debris cover and glacial lakes on the recession of glaciers in Sikkim Himalaya, India. J Glaciol 59(218):1035–1046CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Berthier E, Arnaud Y, Rajesh K et al (2007) Remote sensing estimates of glacier mass balances in the Himachal Pradesh (Western Himalaya), India. Remote Sens Environ 108(3):327–338CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bhambri R, Bolch T (2009) Glacier mapping: a review with special reference to the Indian Himalayas. Prog Phys Geogr 33:672–704CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bhambri R, Bolch T, Chaujar RK (2012) Frontal recession of Gangotri Glacier, Garhwal Himalaya, from 1965 to 2006, measured through high-resolution remote sensing data. Curr Sci 102(3):489–494Google Scholar
- Bhattacharya A, Bolch T, Mukherjee K et al (2016) Overall recession and mass budget of Gangotri Glacier, Garhwal Himalayas, from 1965 to 2015 using remote sensing data. J Glaciol 62(236):1115–1133CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bolch T, Menounos B, Wheate R (2010) Landsat-based inventory of glaciers in western Canada, 1985–2005. Remote Sens Environ 114(1):127–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bolch T, Pieczonka T, Benn DI (2011) Multi-decadal mass loss of glaciers in the Everest area (Nepal Himalaya) derived from stereo imagery. Cryosphere 5:349–358CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bolch T, Kulkarni A, Kääb A et al (2012) The state and fate of Himalayan glaciers. Science 336:310–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bolch T, Pieczonka T, Mukherjee K, Shea J (2017) Brief communication; glaciers in the Hunza catchment (Karakoram) have been nearly in balance since the 1970s. Cryosphere 11:531–539CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bookhagen B, Burbank DW (2010) Toward a complete Himalayan hydrological budget: spatiotemporal distribution of snowmelt and rainfall and their impact on river discharge. Geophys Res Lett 115(F03019):1–25Google Scholar
- Brun F, Berthier E, Wagnon P et al (2017) A spatially resolved estimate of High Mountain Asia glacier mass balances from 2000 to 2016. Nat Geosci 10:668–673CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Buri P, Pellicciotti F, Steiner J et al (2016) A grid based model of backwasting of supraglacial ice cliffs on debris-covered glaciers. Ann Glaciol 57(71):199–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Chen M, Xie P, Janowiak JE (2002) Global land precipitation: a 50-yr monthly analysis based on gauge observations. J Hydrometeorol 3(3):249–266CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Cuffey KM, Paterson WSB (2010) The physics of glaciers, 4th edn. Academic Press Inc, AmsterdamGoogle Scholar
- Dee DP, Uppala SM, Simmons AJ et al (2011) The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system. Q J R Meteorol Soc 137:553–597CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Dehecq A, Millan R, Berthier E et al (2016) Elevation changes inferred from TanDEM-X data over the Mont-Blanc area: impact of the X-band interferometric bias. IEEE J. Sel. Topics Appl. Earth Observ. in Remote Sens, pp 1–3Google Scholar
- Dobhal DP, Kumar S, Mundepi AK (1995) Morphology and glacier dynamics studies in monsoon-arid transition zone: An example from Chhota Shigri glacier, Himachal-Himalaya, India. Curr Sci 68(9):936–944.Google Scholar
- Dobhal DP, Mehta M, Srivastava D (2013) Influence of debris cover on terminus retreat and mass changes of Chorabari Glacier, Garhwal region, central Himalaya, India. J Glaciol 59(217):961–971CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Gardelle J, Berthier E, Arnaud Y (2012) Impact of resolution and radar penetration on glacier elevation changes computed from DEM differencing. J Glaciol 58(208):419–422CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Gardelle J, Berthier E, Arnaud Y et al (2013) Region-wide glacier mass balances over the Pamir-Karakoram-Himalaya during 1999-2011. Cryosphere 7:1263–1286CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Gardner AS, Moholdt G, Cogley JG et al (2013) A reconciled estimate of glacier contributions to sea level rise: 2003 to 2009. Science 340:852–857CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Garg PK, Shukla A, Tiwari RK et al (2017) Assessing the status of glaciers in part of the Chandra basin, Himachal Himalaya: a multiparametric approach. Geomorphology 284:99–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Goerlich F, Bolch T, Mukherjee K et al (2017) Glacier mass loss during the 1960s and 70s in the Ak-Shirak Range (Kyrgyzstan) from multiple stereoscopic Corona and Hexagon imagery. Remote Sens 9(3):275–285CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hall DK, Bahr KJ, Shoener W et al (2003) Consideration of the errors inherent in mapping historical glacier positions in Austria from the ground and space. Remote Sens Environ 86(4):566–577CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Huss M (2013) Density assumptions for converting geodetic glacier volume change to mass change. Cryosphere 7:877–887CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Immerzeel WW, Beek LPH, Bierkens MFP (2010) Climate change will affect the Asian water towers. Science 328:1382–1386CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Immerzeel WW, Wanders N, Lutz F et al (2015) Reconciling high altitude precipitation in the upper Indus basin with glacier mass balances and runoff. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 19:4673–4687CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kääb A, Berthier E, Nuth C et al (2012) Contrasting patterns of early twenty-first-century glacier mass change in the Himalayas. Nature 488:495–498CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kalnay E, Kanamitsu M, Kistler R et al (1996) The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 77(3):437–471CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- King O, Quincey DJ, Carrivick JL et al (2017) Spatial variability in mass loss of glaciers in the Everest region, central Himalayas, between 2000 and 2015. Cryosphere 11(1):407–426CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kulkarni AV, Dhar S, Rathore BP et al (2006) Recession of Samudra Tapu Glacier, Chandra River basin, Himachal Pradesh. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 34(1):39–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kulkarni AV, Bahuguna IM, Rathore BP et al (2007) Glacial retreat in Himalaya using Indian Remote Sensing satellite data. Curr Sci 92(1):69–74Google Scholar
- Kulkarni AV, Rathore BP, Singh SK et al (2011) Understanding changes in the Himalayan cryosphere using remote sensing techniques. Int J Remote Sens 32(3):601–615CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Maussion F, Scherer D, Mölg T et al (2014) Precipitation seasonality and variability over the Tibetan Plateau as resolved by the High Asia reanalysis. J Clim 27:1910–1927CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Miles E, Pelliccioti F, Willis IC et al (2016) Refined energy-balance modelling of a supraglacial pond, Langtang Khola, Nepal. Ann Galciol 57(71):29–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Mooney PA, Mulligan FJ, Fealy (2011) Comparison of ERA-40, ERA-Interim and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data with observed surface air temperatures over Ireland. Int J Climatol 31:545–557CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Nuimura T, Sakai A, Taniguchi K et al (2015) The GAMDAM glacier inventory: a quality controlled inventory of Asian glaciers. Cryosphere 9:849–864CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Nuth C, Kääb A (2011) Co-registration and bias corrections of satellite elevation data sets for quantifying glacier thickness change. Cryosphere 5:271–290CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Pandey P, Venkataraman G (2013) Changes in the glaciers of Chandra-Bhaga basin, Himachal Himalaya, India, between 1980 and 2010 measured using remote sensing. Int J Remote Sens 34(15):5584–5597CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Paul F, Haeberli W (2008) Spatial variability of glacier elevation changes in the Swiss Alps obtained from two digital elevation models. Geophys Res Lett 35(L21502):1–5Google Scholar
- Pepin N, Bradley RS, Diaz HF et al (2015) Elevation dependent warming in mountain regions of the world. Nat Clim Chang 5(5):424–430CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Pieczonka T, Bolch T (2015) Region-wide glacier mass budgets and area changes for the Central Tien Shan between ~1975 and 1999 using Hexagon KH-9 imagery. Glob Planet Chang 128:1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Pieczonka T, Bolch T, Junfeng W et al (2013) Heterogeneous mass loss of glaciers in the Aksu-Tarim Catchment (Central Tien Shan) revealed by 1976 KH-9 Hexagon and 2009 SPOT-5 stereo imagery. Remote Sens Environ 130:233–244CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Ragettli S, Bolch T, Pellicciotti F (2016) Heterogeneous glacier thinning patterns over the last 40 years in Langtang Himal, Nepal. Cryosphere 10:2075–2097CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Rignot E, Echelmeyer K, Krabill W (2001) Penetration depth of interferometric synthetic-aperture radar signals in snow and ice. Geophys Res Lett 28(18):3501–3504CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Rowan AV, Egholm DL, Quincey DJ et al (2015) Modelling the feedbacks between mass balance, ice flow and debris transport to predict the response to climate change of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalaya. Earth Planet Sci Lett 430:427–438CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Sakai A, Takeuchi N, Fujita K et al (2000) Role of supraglacial ponds in the ablation process of a debris-covered glacier in the Nepal Himalayas. In: Nawako M, Raymond C, Fountain A (eds) Debris-covered glaciers, pp 119–130Google Scholar
- Sakai A, Nuimura T, Fujita K et al (2015) Climate regime of Asian glaciers revealed by GAMDAM glacier inventory. Cryosphere 9:865–880CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Schwitter MP, Raymond CF (1993) Changes in the longitudinal profiles of glaciers during advance and retreat. J Glaciol 39(133):582–590CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Song C, Huang B, Ke L et al (2016) Precipitation variability in High Mountain Asia from multiple datasets and implication for water balance analysis in large lake basins. Glob Planet Chang 145:20–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Vijay S, Braun M (2016) Elevation change rates of glaciers in the Lahaul-Spiti (Western Himalaya, India) during 2000–2012 and 201–2013. Remote Sens 8(1038):1–17Google Scholar
- Vincent C, Ramanathan AL, Wagnon P et al (2013) Balanced conditions or slight mass gain of glaciers in the Lahaul and Spiti region (northern India, Himalaya) during the nineties preceded recent mass loss. Cryosphere 7(2):569–582CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Vincent C, Wagnon P, Shea JM et al (2016) Reduced melt on debris-covered glaciers: investigations from Changri Nup Glacier, Nepal. Cryosphere 10:1845–1858CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Yatagai AK, Kamiguchi O, Arakawa A et al (2012) APHRODITE: constructing a long-term daily gridded precipitation dataset for Asia based on a dense network of rain gauges. Bull Am Meteorol Soc:1401–1415Google Scholar
- Zhang L, Su F, Yang D et al (2013) Discharge regime and simulation for the upstream of major rivers over Tibetan Plateau. J Geophys Res Atmos 118(15):8500–8518CrossRefGoogle Scholar