Spatiotemporal variability in surface velocity of large tributary-bearing glaciers of the Indian Himalayas inferred from SAR polarimetry

Abstract

Glacier pattern changes directly indicate variability in local climatic circumstances. The present study dealt with the proposition and estimation of spatiotemporal glacier movement using a Synthetic Aperture Radar-derived polarimetric tracking method which revealed improved estimates over 4 selected large tributary-bearing glaciers (Siachen, Bara Shigri, Gangotri, and Zemu) in the Indian Himalayas. The average estimated velocities between 2021-2022 for all 4 glaciers are 0.13, 0.06, 0.08 and 0.09 m/day. The thick debris cover hindered the movement temporally in the middle and lower reaches of the glaciers. The effect of meltwater influx along the tributary confluence zone was also witnessed over the glaciers. Comparison and validation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Inter-mission Time Series of Land Ice Velocity and Elevation (ITS_LIVE) products has shown the utility of the proposed method in the contributions of active feeding tributaries of the glaciers in the ablation zone.

Keywords:

• glacier movement
• polarimetric tracking
• feeding tributaries
• ITS_LIVE

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Acknowledgments

Authors thank Copernicus hub for Sentinel -1 data and Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) for ALOS PALSAR DEM.

Credit author statement

S.B.: Conceptualization, methodology, software, formal analysis, investigation, visualization, validation, writing – original draft, review, and editing. R.D.G.: Supervision, review, and editing.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2024.2387150.