Spatial surface velocity pattern in the glaciers of Chandra Basin, Western Himalaya

Abstract

Himalayan glaciers are distinct by their surface characteristics, such as debris-cover, supra/proglacial lakes, ice-cliff, and tributaries' contributions, thus complicating their surface velocity pattern and their response towards climate warming. While remote sensing and modelled surface velocity estimation are valuable on a larger scale, in situ high-resolution data is crucial to validate them. In this study, four glaciers (Batal, Sutri Dhaka, Samudra Tapu, and Gepang Gath) from Chandra Basin were monitored to measure point-wise surface displacement using a static GNSS system during 2017–2018. Among them, the highest surface velocity was observed over Samudra Tapu (∼64.3 ma⁻¹), a large and clean-type glacier, while the lowest was for Batal (∼6.2 ma⁻¹), a small and debris-covered glacier. Our study highlighted the contrasting behaviour of lake-terminating and debris-covered glaciers for the surface velocity and also emphasize the additional control of the slope, supraglacial lake, debris thickness and convergence of glacier channels on the glacier surface velocity.

Keywords:

• Glaciers
• surface velocity
• GNSS survey
• Chandra basin
• Himalaya

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to the Director, National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) for his support, and the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) Govt. of India for financial support through the project PACER - Cryosphere and Climate. The U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) is acknowledged for declassified Corona Images, Sentinel 2B images, and ASTER GDEM V2 datasets. This is the NCPOR contribution no. J- 1/2021-22.

Authors contributions

LKP, PS, BP, and MT designed the study and wrote the manuscript. LKP conducted the DGPS survey and processed the data sets. ATS, and SO helped in data collection. All authors contributed to the data interpretation and discussion of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).