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

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 (similar to 64.3 ma(-1)), a large and clean-type glacier, while the lowest was for Batal (similar to 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.

Automated summary

This study monitored four glaciers in the Himalayas and found significant differences in surface velocity between different types of glaciers, with clean-type glaciers showing faster speeds. The research also highlighted the impact of factors such as lakes, debris, slope, and convergence of glacier channels on glacier surface velocity.