Mass balance and morphological evolution of the Dokriani Glacier, central Himalaya, India during 1999–2014

Abstract

Glaciological mass balance (MB) is considered the most direct, undelayed and unfiltered response of the glaciers to climatic perturbations. However, it may inherit errors associated with stake under-representation, averaging over the entire glacier and human bias. Therefore, proper validation of glaciological MB with geodetic MB is highly recommended by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). The present study focuses on the Dokriani Glacier, central Himalaya which is one of the bench-mark glaciers in the region and has glaciological MB records from 1993 to 2013 with intermittent gaps. In the present study, firstly the glaciological MB series is extended to 2014 i.e., field-based MB for one more year is computed and, to compare with it, the geodetic MB is computed for the 1999–2014 period using high resolution Cartosat-1 digital elevation model (DEM) and SRTM DEM. Finally, the study assesses the regional representation of the Dokriani Glacier in terms of MB and evaluates the influence of the MB regime on its morphological evolution. Results show that the average glaciological MB (−0.34 ± 0.2 m water equivalent (w.e.) y−1) is more negative than the geodetic MB (−0.23 ± 0.1 m w.e. y−1) for the 1999–2014 period. This is likely because of the partial representation of glacier margins in the glaciological MB, where melting is strikingly low owing to thick debris cover (>30 cm). In contrast, geodetic MB considers all marginal pixels leading to a comparatively low MB. A comparative assessment shows that the MB of Dokriani Glacier is less negative (possibly due to its huge accumulation area) than most other glacier-specific and regional MBs, restricting it to be a representative glacier in the region. Moreover, continuous negative MB has brought a peculiar change in the epiglacial morphology in the lower tongue of the glacier as differential debris thickness-induced differential melting has turned the glacier surface into a concave one. This concavity has led to development of a large (10–20 m deep) supraglacial channel which is expanding incessantly. The supraglacial channel is also connected with the snout wall and accelerates terminus disintegration. Given the total thickness of about 30–50 m in the lower glacier tongue, downwasting at its current pace, deepening/widening of supraglacial channel coupled with rapid terminus retreat may lead to the complete vanishing of the lower one km glacier tongue. © 2021 China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University