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Overall recession and mass budget of Gangotri Glacier, Garhwal Himalayas, from 1965 to 2015 using remote sensing data

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Bolch_2017_JoG_OverallRecession_CCBY_VoR.pdf (1.855Mb)
Date
12/2016
Author
Bhattacharya, Atanu
Bolch, Tobias
Mukherjee, Kriti
Pieczonka, Tino
Kropacek, Jan
Buchroithner, Manfred F.
Keywords
Corona and hexagon data
Glacier mass balance
Glacier retreat
Glacier surface velocity
GE Environmental Sciences
Earth-Surface Processes
3rd-DAS
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Abstract
Thinning rates for the debris-covered Gangotri Glacier and its tributary glaciers during the period 1968-2014, length variation and area vacated at the snout from 1965 to 2015, and seasonal variation of ice-surface velocity for the last two decades have been investigated in this study. It was found that the mass loss of Gangotri and its tributary glaciers was slightly less than those reported for other debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayan regions. The average velocity during 2006-14 decreased by ~6.7% as compared with that during 1993-2006. The debris-covered area of the main trunk of Gangotri Glacier increased significantly from 1965 until 2015 with the maximum rate of increase (0.8 ± 0.2 km2 a-1) during 2006-15. The retreat (~9.0 ± 3.5 m a-1) was less in recent years (2006-2015) but the down-wasting (0.34 ± 0.2 m a-1) in the same period (2006-2014) was higher than that (0.20 ± 0.1 m a-1) during 1968-2006. The study reinforced the established fact that the glacier length change is a delayed response to climate change and, in addition, is affected by debris cover, whereas glacier mass balance is a more direct and immediate response. Therefore, it is recommended to study the glacier mass balance and not only the glacier extent, to conclude about a glacier's response to climate change.
Citation
Bhattacharya , A , Bolch , T , Mukherjee , K , Pieczonka , T , Kropacek , J & Buchroithner , M F 2016 , ' Overall recession and mass budget of Gangotri Glacier, Garhwal Himalayas, from 1965 to 2015 using remote sensing data ' , Journal of Glaciology , vol. 62 , no. 236 , pp. 1115-1133 . https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.96 , https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.96
Publication
Journal of Glaciology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.96
ISSN
0022-1430
Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2016. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/17279

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