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ABSTRACT
The majority of studies discuss the impact of supraglacial debris on glaciers’ health while the rationale behind the formation and regional distribution of supraglacial debris in the Himalayan-Karakoram (H-K) region is sparsely researched. The present study attempts to evaluate the role of meteorological, topographical, and geological parameters to understand the regional distribution and plausible genesis of supraglacial debris in the H-K area. Glacier-wise Fractional Debris Cover (FDC) for ~5000 glaciers have been estimated using LANDSAT-7 data (1999–2001) based on the Normalized Difference Snow Index. The aforementioned parameters, including FDC, are compiled into a comprehensive database and analysed. Moreover, “2-meter air temperature” from ERA-5 climatological data is used to estimate the number of Freeze–Thaw Cycles. Overall meteorological and topographical parameters show a significant correlation with the distribution of FDC across the H-K region, more prominently for glaciers having low FDC (<0.2). FDC distribution shows a strong dependency on glacier hypsometry with the highest FDC for “Very Bottom Heavy” glaciers and the lowest for “Very Top Heavy” glaciers. The glaciers with Limestone bearing lithology have maximum FDC and are sparsely distributed, but the glaciers with quartzite bearing lithology are widely distributed across the region and have lower FDC.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Director SAC for giving this opportunity of working on this project, which is a part of the Cryosphere Sciences Application program. We have been supported by members of the Cryosphere Sciences Division (CSD/SAC). We also thank Sri. Satadru Bhattacharya (PSD/SAC) for several discussions related to Himalayan geology.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Data availability statement
All the data used in our study are freely available, respective sources have been mentioned below for each data.
LANDSAT 7 (ETM+) multispectral satellite images and SRTM (NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)) data are freely available on https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov.
ERA5 data of Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ECMWF is freely available on https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu.
The geological and geomorphological information is also freely available on Bhukosh- http://bhukosh.gsi.gov.in/Bhukosh/MapViewer.aspx.
The outline of the glaciers and other information were taken from the Himalaya Glacier Information System (HGIS) prepared by SAC/ISRO, which provides baseline information on about 5000 glaciers distributed in the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra Basins (Bahuguna et al., 2021), is available on https://vedas.sac.gov.in/snow-cover/index.html, which can be obtained on a request.