4.6 Article

Influence of Supraglacial Debris Thickness on Thermal Resistance of the Glaciers of Chandra Basin, Western Himalaya

期刊

FRONTIERS IN EARTH SCIENCE
卷 9, 期 -, 页码 -

出版社

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/feart.2021.706312

关键词

supraglacial debris; glacier; thermal resistance; Chandra basin; Western Himalaya; debris-cover

资金

  1. Project PACER - Cryosphere and Climate by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India
  2. [J-60/2021-22]

向作者/读者索取更多资源

The study revealed that glaciers in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region have a large amount of debris cover in the ablation zone, which significantly slows down the ablation rate due to the increased thickness of supraglacial debris. Field measurements showed that approximately 15% of Chandra Basin is covered by supraglacial debris, with up to 90% debris cover in the ablation area of the studied glaciers.
A large number of glaciers in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya are covered with debris in the lower part of the ablation zone, which is continuously expanding due to enhanced glacier mass loss. The supraglacial debris transported over the melting glacier surface acts as an insulating barrier between the ice and atmospheric conditions and has a strong influence on the spatial distribution of surface ice melt. We conducted in-situ field measurements of point-wise ablation rate, supraglacial debris thickness, and debris temperature to examine the thermal resistivity of the debris pack and its influence on ablation over three glaciers (Bara Shigri, Batal, and Kunzam) in Chandra Basin of Western Himalaya during 2016-2017. Satellite-based supraglacial debris cover assessment shows an overall debris covered area of 15% for Chandra basin. The field data revealed that the debris thickness varied between 0.5 and 326 cm, following a spatially distributed pattern in the Chandra basin. The studied glaciers have up to 90% debris cover within the ablation area, and together represent similar to 33.5% of the total debris-covered area in the basin. The supraglacial debris surface temperature and near-surface air temperature shows a significant correlation (r = > 0.88, p = < 0.05), which reflects the effective control of energy balance over the debris surface. The thermal resistivity measurements revealed low resistance (0.009 +/- 0.01 m(2)degrees C W-1) under thin debris pack and high resistance (0.55 +/- 0.09 m(2)degrees C W-1) under thick debris. Our study revealed that the increased thickness of supraglacial debris significantly retards the glacier ablation due to its high thermal resistivity.

作者

我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。

评论

主要评分

4.6
评分不足

次要评分

新颖性
-
重要性
-
科学严谨性
-
评价这篇论文

推荐

暂无数据
暂无数据