Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Owen KingORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Knowledge about the occurrence and characteristics of surge-type glaciers is crucial due to the impact of surging on glacier melt and glacier-related hazards. One of the super-clusters of surge-type glaciers is High Mountain Asia (HMA). However, no consistent region-wide inventory of surge-type glaciers in HMA exists. We present a regionally resolved inventory of surge-type glaciers based on their behaviour across High Mountain Asia between 2000 and 2018. We identify surge-type behaviour from surface velocity, elevation and feature change patterns using a multi-factor remote sensing approach that combines yearly ITS_LIVE velocity data, DEM differences and very-high-resolution imagery (Bing Maps, Google Earth). Out of the ≈95 000 glaciers in HMA, we identified 666 that show diagnostic surge-type glacier behaviour between 2000 and 2018, which are mainly found in the Karakoram (223) and the Pamir regions (223). The total area covered by the 666 surge-type glaciers represents 19.5 % of the glacierized area in Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) V6.0 polygons in HMA. Only 68 glaciers were already identified as “surge type” in the RGI V6.0. We further validate 107 glaciers previously labelled as “probably surge type” and newly identify 491 glaciers, not previously reported in other inventories covering HMA. We finally discuss the possibility of self-organized criticality in glacier surges. Across all regions of HMA, the surge-affected area within glacier complexes displays a significant power law dependency with glacier length.
Author(s): Guillet G, King O, Lv M, Ghuffar S, Benn D, Quincey D, Bolch T
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: The Cryosphere
Year: 2022
Volume: 16
Pages: 603-623
Online publication date: 18/02/2022
Acceptance date: 06/01/2022
Date deposited: 29/11/2023
ISSN (print): 1994-0416
ISSN (electronic): 1994-0424
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
URL: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-603-2022
DOI: 10.5194/tc-16-603-2022
Data Access Statement: The inventory is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5524861 (Guillet et al., 2021) and through https://www.mountcryo.org/datasets/ (Mount Cryo, 2022).
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
