Quantification of annual glacier surface mass balance for the Chhota Shigri Glacier, Western Himalayas, India using an Equilibrium-Line Altitude (ELA) based approach

Glaciers in High Mountain Asia have experienced intense scientific scrutiny in the past decade due to their hydrological and societal importance. The explosion of freely-available satellite observations has greatly advanced our understanding of their thinning, motion, and overall mass losses, and it has become clear that they exhibit both local and regional variations due to debris cover, surging and climatic regime. However, our understanding of glacier accumulation and ablation rates is limited to a few individual sites, and altitudinal surface mass balance is essentially unknown across the vast region.Here we combine recent assessments of ice thickness and surface velocity to correct observed glacier thinning rates for mass redistribution in a flowband framework to derive the first estimates of altitudinal glacier surface mass balance across the region. We first evaluate our results at the glacier scale with all available glaciological field measurements (27 glaciers), then analyze 4665 glaciers (we exclude surging and other anomalous glaciers) comprising 43% of area and 36% of mass for glaciers larger than 2 km2 in the region. The surface mass balance results allow us to determine the equilibrium line altitude for each glacier for the period 2000-2016.&#160; We then aggregate our altitudinal and hypsometric surface mass balance results to produce idealised profiles for distinct subregions, enabling us to consider the subregional heterogeneity of mass balance and the importance of debris-covered ice for the region&#8217;s overall ablation.We find clear patterns of ELA variability across the region. &#160;9% of glaciers accumulate mass over less than 10% of their area on average for the study period. These doomed&#160; glaciers are concentrated in Nyainqentanglha, which also has the most negative mass balance of the subregions, whereas accumulation area ratios of 0.7-0.9 are common for glaciers in the neutral-balance Karakoram and Kunlun Shan. We find that surface debris extent is negatively correlated with ELA, explaining up to 1000 m of variability across the region and reflecting the importance of avalanching as a mass input for debris-covered glaciers at lower elevations. However, in contrast with studies of thinning rates alone, we find a clear melt reduction for low-elevation debris-covered glacier areas, consistent across regions, largely resolving the &#8216;debris cover anomaly&#8217;.&#160;&#160;Our results provide a comprehensive baseline for the health of the High Asian ice reservoirs in the early 21st Century. The estimates of altitudinal surface mass balance and ELAs will additionally enable novel strategies for the calibration of glacier and hydrological models. Finally, our results emphasize the potential of combined remote-sensing observations to understand the environmental factors and physical processes responsible for High Asia&#8217;s heterogeneous patterns of recent glacier evolution.

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Surface mass balance of Davies Dome and Whisky Glacier on James Ross Island, north-eastern Antarctic Peninsula, based on different volume-mass conversion approaches

Czech Polar Reports ◽

10.5817/cpr2019-1-1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Zbyněk Engel ◽

Filip Hrbáček ◽

Kamil Láska ◽

Daniel Nývlt ◽

Zdeněk Stachoň

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Mass Gain ◽

Equilibrium Line ◽

South Shetland Islands ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Shetland Islands ◽

James Ross Island ◽

Accumulation Area Ratio

This study presents surface mass balance of two small glaciers on James Ross Island calculated using constant and zonally-variable conversion factors. The density of 500 and 900 kg·m–3 adopted for snow in the accumulation area and ice in the ablation area, respectively, provides lower mass balance values that better fit to the glaciological records from glaciers on Vega Island and South Shetland Islands. The difference between the cumulative surface mass balance values based on constant (1.23 ± 0.44 m w.e.) and zonally-variable density (0.57 ± 0.67 m w.e.) is higher for Whisky Glacier where a total mass gain was observed over the period 2009–2015. The cumulative surface mass balance values are 0.46 ± 0.36 and 0.11 ± 0.37 m w.e. for Davies Dome, which experienced lower mass gain over the same period. The conversion approach does not affect much the spatial distribution of surface mass balance on glaciers, equilibrium line altitude and accumulation-area ratio. The pattern of the surface mass balance is almost identical in the ablation zone and very similar in the accumulation zone, where the constant conversion factor yields higher surface mass balance values. The equilibrium line altitude and accumulation-area ratio determined for the investigated glaciers differ by less than 2m and 0.01, respectively. The annual changes of equilibrium line altitude and the mean values determined over the period 2009–2015 for Whisky Glacier (311 ± 16 m a.s.l.) and Davies Dome (393 ± 18 m a.s.l.) coincide with the values reported from Bahía del Diablo Glacier on Vega Island but differ from the glaciological records on South Shetland Islands.

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25 years (1981–2005) of equilibrium-line altitude and mass-balance reconstruction on Glacier Blanc, French Alps, using remote-sensing methods and meteorological data

Journal of Glaciology ◽

10.3189/002214308784886063 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 54 (185) ◽

pp. 307-314 ◽

Cited By ~ 51

Author(s):

Antoine Rabatel ◽

Jean-Pierre Dedieu ◽

Emmanuel Thibert ◽

Anne Letréguilly ◽

Christian Vincent

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Mass Balance ◽

Satellite Images ◽

Meteorological Data ◽

Equilibrium Line ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Mass Balances ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Surface Mass ◽

French Alps

AbstractAnnual equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) and surface mass balance of Glacier Blanc, Ecrins region, French Alps, were reconstructed from a 25 year time series of satellite images (1981–2005). The remote-sensing method used was based on identification of the snowline, which is easy to discern on optical satellite images taken at the end of the ablation season. In addition, surface mass balances at the ELA were reconstructed for the same period using meteorological data from three nearby weather stations. A comparison of the two types of series reveals a correlation of r > 0.67 at the 0.01 level of significance. Furthermore, the surface mass balances obtained from remote-sensing data are consistent with those obtained from field measurements on five other French glaciers (r = 0.76, p < 0.01). Also consistent for Glacier Blanc is the total mass loss (10.8 m w.e.) over the studied period. However, the surface mass balances obtained with the remote-sensing method show lower interannual variability. Given that the remote-sensing method is based on changes in the ELA, this difference probably results from the lower sensitivity of the surface mass balance to climate parameters at the ELA.

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Glacier Surface Mass Balance in the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Northeastern Siberia

Water ◽

10.3390/w11091949 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 1949 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yong Zhang ◽

Xin Wang ◽

Zongli Jiang ◽

Junfeng Wei ◽

Hiroyuki Enomoto ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Loss ◽

Mass Balance ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Negative Mass ◽

Glacier Surface ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Northeastern Siberia ◽

Response To Temperature ◽

Rapid Mass

Arctic glaciers comprise a small fraction of the world’s land ice area, but their ongoing mass loss currently represents a large cryospheric contribution to the sea level rise. In the Suntar-Khayata Mountains (SKMs) of northeastern Siberia, in situ measurements of glacier surface mass balance (SMB) are relatively sparse, limiting our understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of regional mass loss. Here, we present SMB time series for all glaciers in the SKMs, estimated through a glacier SMB model. Our results yielded an average SMB of −0.22 m water equivalents (w.e.) year−1 for the whole region during 1951–2011. We found that 77.4% of these glaciers had a negative mass balance and detected slightly negative mass balance prior to 1991 and significantly rapid mass loss since 1991. The analysis suggests that the rapidly accelerating mass loss was dominated by increased surface melting, while the importance of refreezing in the SMB progressively decreased over time. Projections under two future climate scenarios confirmed the sustained rapid shrinkage of these glaciers. In response to temperature rise, the total present glacier area is likely to decrease by around 50% during the period 2071–2100 under representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5).

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Twenty-one years of mass balance observations along the K-transect, West Greenland

Earth System Science Data ◽

10.5194/essd-4-31-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 31-35 ◽

Cited By ~ 74

Author(s):

R. S. W. van de Wal ◽

W. Boot ◽

C. J. P. P. Smeets ◽

H. Snellen ◽

M. R. van den Broeke ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Entire Period ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Altitude Range ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Surface Mass ◽

West Greenland ◽

Increasing Trend ◽

Period Data ◽

The Mean

Abstract. A 21-yr record is presented of surface mass balance measurements along the K-transect. The series covers the period 1990–2011. Data are available at eight sites along a transect over an altitude range of 380–1850 m at approximately 67° N in West Greenland. The surface mass balance gradient is on average 3.8 × 10−3 m w.e. m−1, and the mean equilibrium line altitude is 1553 m a.s.l. Only the lower three sites within 10 km of the margin up to an elevation of 700 m experience a significant increasing trend in the ablation over the entire period. Data are available at: doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.779181.

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Analysis of the surface mass balance for deglacial climate simulations

The Cryosphere ◽

10.5194/tc-15-1131-2021 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 1131-1156

Author(s):

Marie-Luise Kapsch ◽

Uwe Mikolajewicz ◽

Florian A. Ziemen ◽

Christian B. Rodehacke ◽

Clemens Schannwell

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Northern Hemisphere ◽

Climate Models ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Meridional Overturning Circulation ◽

Balance Model ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Max Planck ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Surface Mass

Abstract. A realistic simulation of the surface mass balance (SMB) is essential for simulating past and future ice-sheet changes. As most state-of-the-art Earth system models (ESMs) are not capable of realistically representing processes determining the SMB, most studies of the SMB are limited to observations and regional climate models and cover the last century and near future only. Using transient simulations with the Max Planck Institute ESM in combination with an energy balance model (EBM), we extend previous research and study changes in the SMB and equilibrium line altitude (ELA) for the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets throughout the last deglaciation. The EBM is used to calculate and downscale the SMB onto a higher spatial resolution than the native ESM grid and allows for the resolution of SMB variations due to topographic gradients not resolved by the ESM. An evaluation for historical climate conditions (1980–2010) shows that derived SMBs compare well with SMBs from regional modeling. Throughout the deglaciation, changes in insolation dominate the Greenland SMB. The increase in insolation and associated warming early in the deglaciation result in an ELA and SMB increase. The SMB increase is caused by compensating effects of melt and accumulation: the warming of the atmosphere leads to an increase in melt at low elevations along the ice-sheet margins, while it results in an increase in accumulation at higher levels as a warmer atmosphere precipitates more. After 13 ka, the increase in melt begins to dominate, and the SMB decreases. The decline in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation after 9 ka leads to an increasing SMB and decreasing ELA. Superimposed on these long-term changes are centennial-scale episodes of abrupt SMB and ELA decreases related to slowdowns of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) that lead to a cooling over most of the Northern Hemisphere.

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Monitoring glacier albedo as a proxy to derive summer and annual surface mass balances from optical remote-sensing data

The Cryosphere ◽

10.5194/tc-12-271-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 271-286 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Lucas Davaze ◽

Antoine Rabatel ◽

Yves Arnaud ◽

Pascal Sirguey ◽

Delphine Six ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Surface Albedo ◽

In Situ Measurements ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Mass Balances ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Minimum Surface ◽

Summer Minimum

Abstract. Less than 0.25 % of the 250 000 glaciers inventoried in the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI V.5) are currently monitored with in situ measurements of surface mass balance. Increasing this archive is very challenging, especially using time-consuming methods based on in situ measurements, and complementary methods are required to quantify the surface mass balance of unmonitored glaciers. The current study relies on the so-called albedo method, based on the analysis of albedo maps retrieved from optical satellite imagery acquired since 2000 by the MODIS sensor, on board the TERRA satellite. Recent studies revealed substantial relationships between summer minimum glacier-wide surface albedo and annual surface mass balance, because this minimum surface albedo is directly related to the accumulation–area ratio and the equilibrium-line altitude. On the basis of 30 glaciers located in the French Alps where annual surface mass balance data are available, our study conducted on the period 2000–2015 confirms the robustness and reliability of the relationship between the summer minimum surface albedo and the annual surface mass balance. For the ablation season, the integrated summer surface albedo is significantly correlated with the summer surface mass balance of the six glaciers seasonally monitored. These results are promising to monitor both annual and summer glacier-wide surface mass balances of individual glaciers at a regional scale using optical satellite images. A sensitivity study on the computed cloud masks revealed a high confidence in the retrieved albedo maps, restricting the number of omission errors. Albedo retrieval artifacts have been detected for topographically incised glaciers, highlighting limitations in the shadow correction algorithm, although inter-annual comparisons are not affected by systematic errors.

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A regression model for the mass-balance distribution of the Vatnajökull ice cap, Iceland

Annals of Glaciology ◽

10.3189/172756403781815447 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 37 ◽

pp. 189-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Guðefinna Aðalgeirsdóttir ◽

G. Hilmar Gudmundsson ◽

Helgi Björnsson

Keyword(s):

Linear Regression ◽

Regression Model ◽

Mass Balance ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Negative Mass ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Ice Cap ◽

Maximum Value ◽

Slope Direction

AbstractA non-linear regression model describing the mass-balance distribution of the whole Vatnajökull ice cap, Iceland, for the years 1992–2000 is presented. All available data from some 40 locations over this 9 year period were used to determine the parameters of the model. The regression model uses six adjustable parameters which all have a clear physical interpretation. They are the slope, direction and the height of the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) plane, two altitude mass-balance gradients, and a maximum value of the surface mass balance. It is found that the temporal variation of the observed mass-balance distribution can be accurately described through annual shifts of the ELA. Annual shifts in ELA are on the order of 100 m, which is of the same magnitude as the change expected to be caused by the climate variation predicted during the next decades. A slight trend towards a more negative mass balance is detected during this 9 year period.

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Simulations of changes to Glaciar Zongo, Bolivia (16° S), over the 21st century using a 3-D full-Stokes model and CMIP5 climate projections

Annals of Glaciology ◽

10.3189/2015aog70a113 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 56 (70) ◽

pp. 89-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Marion Réveillet ◽

Antoine Rabatel ◽

Fabien Gillet-Chaulet ◽

Alvaro Soruco

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

21St Century ◽

Coupled Model ◽

Cmip5 Models ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Temperature Changes ◽

Intercomparison Project

AbstractBolivian glaciers are an essential source of fresh water for the Altiplano, and any changes they may undergo in the near future due to ongoing climate change are of particular concern. Glaciar Zongo, Bolivia, located near the administrative capital La Paz, has been extensively monitored by the GLACIOCLIM observatory in the last two decades. Here we model the glacier dynamics using the 3-D full-Stokes model Elmer/Ice. The model was calibrated and validated over a recent period (1997–2010) using four independent datasets: available observations of surface velocities and surface mass balance were used for calibration, and changes in surface elevation and retreat of the glacier front were used for validation. Over the validation period, model outputs are in good agreement with observations (differences less than a small percentage). The future surface mass balance is assumed to depend on the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) and temperature changes through the sensitivity of ELA to temperature. The model was then forced for the 21st century using temperature changes projected by nine Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) models. Here we give results for three different representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The intermediate scenario RCP6.0 led to 69 ± 7% volume loss by 2100, while the two extreme scenarios, RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, led to 40 ± 7% and 89 ± 4% loss of volume, respectively.

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