Journal
CRYOSPHERE
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages 133-138Publisher
COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
DOI: 10.5194/tc-11-133-2017
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Funding
- DST-SERB [SB.DGH-71.2013]
- DST-INSPIRE Faculty award [IFA-12-EAS-04]
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Recent geodetic mass-balance measurements reveal similar thinning rates on glaciers with or without debris cover in the Himalaya-Karakoram region. This comes as a surprise as a thick debris cover reduces the surface melting significantly due to its insulating effects. Here we present arguments, supported by results from numerical flowline model simulations of idealised glaciers, that a competition between the changes in the surface mass-balance forcing and that of the emergence/submergence velocities can lead to similar thinning rates on these two types of glaciers. As the climate starts warming, the thinning rate on a debris-covered glacier is initially smaller than that on a similar debris-free glacier. Subsequently, the rate on the debris-covered glacier becomes comparable to and then larger than that on the debris-free one. The time evolution of glacier-averaged thinning rates after an initial warming is strongly controlled by the time variation of the corresponding emergence velocity profile.
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