@article{12574, abstract = {Melt from supraglacial ice cliffs is an important contributor to the mass loss of debris-covered glaciers. However, ice cliff contribution is difficult to quantify as they are highly dynamic features, and the paucity of observations of melt rates and their variability leads to large modelling uncertainties. We quantify monsoon season melt and 3D evolution of four ice cliffs over two debris-covered glaciers in High Mountain Asia (Langtang Glacier, Nepal, and 24K Glacier, China) at very high resolution using terrestrial photogrammetry applied to imagery captured from time-lapse cameras installed on lateral moraines. We derive weekly flow-corrected digital elevation models (DEMs) of the glacier surface with a maximum vertical bias of ±0.2 m for Langtang Glacier and ±0.05 m for 24K Glacier and use change detection to determine distributed melt rates at the surfaces of the ice cliffs throughout the study period. We compare the measured melt patterns with those derived from a 3D energy balance model to derive the contribution of the main energy fluxes. We find that ice cliff melt varies considerably throughout the melt season, with maximum melt rates of 5 to 8 cm d−1, and their average melt rates are 11–14 (Langtang) and 4.5 (24K) times higher than the surrounding debris-covered ice. Our results highlight the influence of redistributed supraglacial debris on cliff melt. At both sites, ice cliff albedo is influenced by the presence of thin debris at the ice cliff surface, which is largely controlled on 24K Glacier by liquid precipitation events that wash away this debris. Slightly thicker or patchy debris reduces melt by 1–3 cm d−1 at all sites. Ultimately, our observations show a strong spatio-temporal variability in cliff area at each site, which is controlled by supraglacial streams and ponds and englacial cavities that promote debris slope destabilisation and the lateral expansion of the cliffs. These findings highlight the need to better represent processes of debris redistribution in ice cliff models, to in turn improve estimates of ice cliff contribution to glacier melt and the long-term geomorphological evolution of debris-covered glacier surfaces.}, author = {Kneib, Marin and Miles, Evan S. and Buri, Pascal and Fugger, Stefan and McCarthy, Michael and Shaw, Thomas E. and Chuanxi, Zhao and Truffer, Martin and Westoby, Matthew J. and Yang, Wei and Pellicciotti, Francesca}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes, Water Science and Technology}, number = {11}, pages = {4701--4725}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Sub-seasonal variability of supraglacial ice cliff melt rates and associated processes from time-lapse photogrammetry}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-16-4701-2022}, volume = {16}, year = {2022}, } @article{12578, abstract = {Currently, about 12 %–13 % of High Mountain Asia’s glacier area is debris-covered, which alters its surface mass balance. However, in regional-scale modelling approaches, debris-covered glaciers are typically treated as clean-ice glaciers, leading to a bias when modelling their future evolution. Here, we present a new approach for modelling debris area and thickness evolution, applicable from single glaciers to the global scale. We derive a parameterization and implement it as a module into the Global Glacier Evolution Model (GloGEMflow), a combined mass-balance ice-flow model. The module is initialized with both glacier-specific observations of the debris' spatial distribution and estimates of debris thickness. These data sets account for the fact that debris can either enhance or reduce surface melt depending on thickness. Our model approach also enables representing the spatiotemporal evolution of debris extent and thickness. We calibrate and evaluate the module on a selected subset of glaciers and apply GloGEMflow using different climate scenarios to project the future evolution of all glaciers in High Mountain Asia until 2100. Explicitly accounting for debris cover has only a minor effect on the projected mass loss, which is in line with previous projections. Despite this small effect, we argue that the improved process representation is of added value when aiming at capturing intra-glacier scales, i.e. spatial mass-balance distribution. Depending on the climate scenario, the mean debris-cover fraction is expected to increase, while mean debris thickness is projected to show only minor changes, although large local thickening is expected. To isolate the influence of explicitly accounting for supraglacial debris cover, we re-compute glacier evolution without the debris-cover module. We show that glacier geometry, area, volume, and flow velocity evolve differently, especially at the level of individual glaciers. This highlights the importance of accounting for debris cover and its spatiotemporal evolution when projecting future glacier changes.}, author = {Compagno, Loris and Huss, Matthias and Miles, Evan Stewart and McCarthy, Michael James and Zekollari, Harry and Dehecq, Amaury and Pellicciotti, Francesca and Farinotti, Daniel}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes, Water Science and Technology}, number = {5}, pages = {1697--1718}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Modelling supraglacial debris-cover evolution from the single-glacier to the regional scale: An application to High Mountain Asia}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-16-1697-2022}, volume = {16}, year = {2022}, } @article{12579, abstract = {The Indian and East Asian summer monsoons shape the melt and accumulation patterns of glaciers in High Mountain Asia in complex ways due to the interaction of persistent cloud cover, large temperature ranges, high atmospheric water content and high precipitation rates. Glacier energy- and mass-balance modelling using in situ measurements offers insights into the ways in which surface processes are shaped by climatic regimes. In this study, we use a full energy- and mass-balance model and seven on-glacier automatic weather station datasets from different parts of the Central and Eastern Himalaya to investigate how monsoon conditions influence the glacier surface energy and mass balance. In particular, we look at how debris-covered and debris-free glaciers respond differently to monsoonal conditions. The radiation budget primarily controls the melt of clean-ice glaciers, but turbulent fluxes play an important role in modulating the melt energy on debris-covered glaciers. The sensible heat flux decreases during core monsoon, but the latent heat flux cools the surface due to evaporation of liquid water. This interplay of radiative and turbulent fluxes causes debris-covered glacier melt rates to stay almost constant through the different phases of the monsoon. Ice melt under thin debris, on the other hand, is amplified by both the dark surface and the turbulent fluxes, which intensify melt during monsoon through surface heating and condensation. Pre-monsoon snow cover can considerably delay melt onset and have a strong impact on the seasonal mass balance. Intermittent monsoon snow cover lowers the melt rates at high elevation. This work is fundamental to the understanding of the present and future Himalayan cryosphere and water budget, while informing and motivating further glacier- and catchment-scale research using process-based models.}, author = {Fugger, Stefan and Fyffe, Catriona L. and Fatichi, Simone and Miles, Evan and McCarthy, Michael and Shaw, Thomas E. and Ding, Baohong and Yang, Wei and Wagnon, Patrick and Immerzeel, Walter and Liu, Qiao and Pellicciotti, Francesca}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes, Water Science and Technology}, number = {5}, pages = {1631--1652}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Understanding monsoon controls on the energy and mass balance of glaciers in the Central and Eastern Himalaya}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-16-1631-2022}, volume = {16}, year = {2022}, } @article{12589, abstract = {Near-surface air temperature (Ta) is highly important for modelling glacier ablation, though its spatio-temporal variability over melting glaciers still remains largely unknown. We present a new dataset of distributed Ta for three glaciers of different size in the south-east Tibetan Plateau during two monsoon-dominated summer seasons. We compare on-glacier Ta to ambient Ta extrapolated from several local off-glacier stations. We parameterise the along-flowline sensitivity of Ta on these glaciers to changes in off-glacier temperatures (referred to as “temperature sensitivity”) and present the results in the context of available distributed on-glacier datasets around the world. Temperature sensitivity decreases rapidly up to 2000–3000 m along the down-glacier flowline distance. Beyond this distance, both the Ta on the Tibetan glaciers and global glacier datasets show little additional cooling relative to the off-glacier temperature. In general, Ta on small glaciers (with flowline distances <1000 m) is highly sensitive to temperature changes outside the glacier boundary layer. The climatology of a given region can influence the general magnitude of this temperature sensitivity, though no strong relationships are found between along-flowline temperature sensitivity and mean summer temperatures or precipitation. The terminus of some glaciers is affected by other warm-air processes that increase temperature sensitivity (such as divergent boundary layer flow, warm up-valley winds or debris/valley heating effects) which are evident only beyond ∼70 % of the total glacier flowline distance. Our results therefore suggest a strong role of local effects in modulating temperature sensitivity close to the glacier terminus, although further work is still required to explain the variability of these effects for different glaciers.}, author = {Shaw, Thomas E. and Yang, Wei and Ayala, Álvaro and Bravo, Claudio and Zhao, Chuanxi and Pellicciotti, Francesca}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes, Water Science and Technology}, number = {2}, pages = {595--614}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Distributed summer air temperatures across mountain glaciers in the south-east Tibetan Plateau: Temperature sensitivity and comparison with existing glacier datasets}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-15-595-2021}, volume = {15}, year = {2021}, } @article{12596, abstract = {As glaciers adjust their size in response to climate variations, long-term changes in meltwater production can be expected, affecting the local availability of water resources. We investigate glacier runoff in the period 1955–2016 in the Maipo River basin (4843 km2, 33.0–34.3∘ S, 69.8–70.5∘ W), in the semiarid Andes of Chile. The basin contains more than 800 glaciers, which cover 378 km2 in total (inventoried in 2000). We model the mass balance and runoff contribution of 26 glaciers with the physically oriented and fully distributed TOPKAPI (Topographic Kinematic Approximation and Integration)-ETH glacio-hydrological model and extrapolate the results to the entire basin. TOPKAPI-ETH is run at a daily time step using several glaciological and meteorological datasets, and its results are evaluated against streamflow records, remotely sensed snow cover, and geodetic mass balances for the periods 1955–2000 and 2000–2013. Results show that in 1955–2016 glacier mass balance had a general decreasing trend as a basin average but also had differences between the main sub-catchments. Glacier volume decreased by one-fifth (from 18.6±4.5 to 14.9±2.9 km3). Runoff from the initially glacierized areas was 177±25 mm yr−1 (16±7 % of the total contributions to the basin), but it shows a decreasing sequence of maxima, which can be linked to the interplay between a decrease in precipitation since the 1980s and the reduction of ice melt. Glaciers in the Maipo River basin will continue retreating because they are not in equilibrium with the current climate. In a hypothetical constant climate scenario, glacier volume would reduce to 81±38 % of the year 2000 volume, and glacier runoff would be 78±30 % of the 1955–2016 average. This would considerably decrease the drought mitigation capacity of the basin.}, author = {Ayala, Álvaro and Farías-Barahona, David and Huss, Matthias and Pellicciotti, Francesca and McPhee, James and Farinotti, Daniel}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes, Water Science and Technology}, number = {6}, pages = {2005--2027}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Glacier runoff variations since 1955 in the Maipo River basin, in the semiarid Andes of central Chile}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-14-2005-2020}, volume = {14}, year = {2020}, } @article{12606, abstract = {Ice cliffs within a supraglacial debris cover have been identified as a source for high ablation relative to the surrounding debris-covered area. Due to their small relative size and steep orientation, ice cliffs are difficult to detect using nadir-looking space borne sensors. The method presented here uses surface slopes calculated from digital elevation model (DEM) data to map ice cliff geometry and produce an ice cliff probability map. Surface slope thresholds, which can be sensitive to geographic location and/or data quality, are selected automatically. The method also attempts to include area at the (often narrowing) ends of ice cliffs which could otherwise be neglected due to signal saturation in surface slope data. The method was calibrated in the eastern Alaska Range, Alaska, USA, against a control ice cliff dataset derived from high-resolution visible and thermal data. Using the same input parameter set that performed best in Alaska, the method was tested against ice cliffs manually mapped in the Khumbu Himal, Nepal. Our results suggest the method can accommodate different glaciological settings and different DEM data sources without a data intensive (high-resolution, multi-data source) recalibration.}, author = {Herreid, Sam and Pellicciotti, Francesca}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes, Water Science and Technology}, number = {5}, pages = {1811--1829}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Automated detection of ice cliffs within supraglacial debris cover}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-12-1811-2018}, volume = {12}, year = {2018}, } @article{12617, abstract = {This study presents volume and mass changes of seven (five partially debris-covered, two debris-free) glaciers in the upper Langtang catchment in Nepal. We use a digital elevation model (DEM) from 1974 stereo Hexagon satellite data and seven DEMs derived from 2006–2015 stereo or tri-stereo satellite imagery (e.g., SPOT6/7). The availability of multiple independent DEM differences allows the identification of a robust signal and narrowing down of the uncertainty about recent volume changes. The volume changes calculated over several multiyear periods between 2006 and 2015 consistently indicate that glacier thinning has accelerated with respect to the period 1974–2006. We calculate an ensemble-mean elevation change rate of –0.45 ± 0.18 m a−1 for 2006–2015, while for the period 1974–2006 we compute a rate of −0.24 ± 0.08 m a−1. However, the behavior of glaciers in the study area is heterogeneous, and the presence or absence of debris does not seem to be a good predictor for mass balance trends. Debris-covered tongues have nonlinear thinning profiles, and we show that recent accelerations in thinning correlate with the presence of supraglacial cliffs and lakes. At stagnating glacier areas near the glacier front, however, thinning rates decreased with time or remained constant. The April 2015 Nepal earthquake triggered large avalanches in the study catchment. Analysis of two post-earthquake DEMs revealed that the avalanche deposit volumes remaining 6 months after the earthquake are negligible in comparison to 2006–2015 elevation changes. However, the deposits compensate about 40 % the mass loss of debris-covered tongues of 1 average year.}, author = {Ragettli, Silvan and Bolch, Tobias and Pellicciotti, Francesca}, issn = {1994-0424}, journal = {The Cryosphere}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes, Water Science and Technology}, number = {5}, pages = {2075--2097}, publisher = {Copernicus Publications}, title = {{Heterogeneous glacier thinning patterns over the last 40 years in Langtang Himal, Nepal}}, doi = {10.5194/tc-10-2075-2016}, volume = {10}, year = {2016}, }