This seminar report summarizes research on factors affecting glacier changes in the Himalayas. It discusses methods used to monitor glaciers such as geodetic, hydrological, optical remote sensing, radar, and laser scanning. Several glaciers in the Himalayan region were analyzed including Gangotri, Dokriani, Chorabari, and Pindari glaciers. Key parameters studied include temperature, precipitation, elevation change, debris cover, and snow line altitude. Observations showed most glaciers retreating due to increasing temperature and precipitation trends. Smaller glaciers showed faster percentage area loss than large glaciers. Factors like elevation, slope, aspect and debris coverage influenced glacier response. While research has

1. INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ROORKEE
Factors responsible for glacier changes in
the Himalayas
Presented by:
Pawan Singh(21910033)
Dr. Saurabh Vijay
Under the Supervision of
Seminar Report

2. 2
Table of content
• Introduction
• Methods
• Glaciers Covered
• Parameters
– Indicators
– Predictors
• Observations
• Discussions
• Conclusion and Research Gaps
• Bibliography

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INTRODUCTION
• The Himalayan range is one of the youngest and loftiest mountain ranges on the planet.
• It is the largest freshwater accumulation other than the polar regions. And its meltwater
is source of major river like Ganga, Brahmaputra, Indus and many others which
provides water for drinking, irrigation, and power for over 1.3 billion people in Asia—
which is nearly 20% of the world’s population.
• The climatic conditions of Himalayan region can be characterized by
tropical/subtropical climatic conditions from foothills regions to permanently covered
snow peaks.
• The climate of the Himalayan regions has been experiencing significant changes since
the twentieth century.
• In this seminar we’ll look at the which factors are affecting the response of Himalayas
changes.

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HIMALAYA REGION
Figure 1: Map showing Region of the type of himalayas along with the
Karakoram region,Hindu kush and Tibetan Plateau

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METHODS
Figure 2: Image showing type of methods used to monitor the glaciers with data used.

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Geodetic method and Hydrological method
Figure 3: (a) Reference antenna
mounted on solid bedrock, (b)
GPS survey along the snout of
Gangotri glacier, (c) measurements
of cross-section area across the
Bhagirathi stream draining from
Gangotri glacier, (d) photograph
showing drilling on the glacier
surface through ice drill (AR502),
(e) measurement of stake height to
determine the debris thickness on
the glacier surface
Image Courtesy:Bisht et al., 2020

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Laser Scanning
Figure 4: Variation of waveform parameters for ice surface types
Image Courtesy: Yi et al., 2015

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RADAR Remote sensing & Gravity Measurement
Figure 5(Top-Left): Glacial surface
velocities based on offset tracking
techniques (Fan et al., 2019)
Figure 6(Bottom-Right): Gravity
Trend over the Tianshan Region,
Red dots represent footprints of
ICESat and violet area showing
lake region. (Yi et al., 2016)

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Optical Remote sensing
Figure 7: Gangotri glacier boundary retreating over period 1994-2015 using Optical
remote sensing data
Image Courtesy: Garg et al., 2017

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GLACIERS COVERED
Table 1: Glaciers covered by authors with the methods used
Name of Glacier (Basin) Literature Methods
Warwan (Chenab) Brahmbhatt et al., 2012; Pratap et al., 2016 Optical Remote Sensing
Dokriani (Bhagirathi) P. K. Garg et al., 2022; V. Garg et al., 2021 Optical remote sensing, Geodetic,
Hydrological Methods
Chorabari (Mandakini) P.K Garg et al., 2017;
Pratap et al; Dobhal et al., 2013
Optical remote sensing, Geodetic,
Hydrological Methods
Gangotri P.K Garg 2017; Bisht et al.,2020 Optical remote sensing, Geodetic
Survey, Hydrological method
Pindari P.K Garg 2017 Optical remote sensing, Geodetic
Survey, Hydrological method
Mrigthuni V. Garg et al., 2020 Optical remote sensing, Geodetic
Survey, Hydrological method
Mt. Everest (28 glaciers at
southern Kosi basin)
Salerno et al., 2012; Luckman et al., 2021 Optical remote sensing
Shie and Shimo Fan et al., 2019 RADAR remote sensing, LiDAR,
Geodetic Survey

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Figure 8: Map showing Glaciers covered by authors as shown in previous
Table

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PARAMETERS
Parameters
Indicators Predictors
Precipitation
Temperature
Elevation
Change
Glacial Area
Change
And Many Others And Many Others

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INDICATOR VARIABLES
• Mass Balance
• Glacier Surface Area change
• Debris cover
• Elevation change
• Snow Line Altitude
• Terminus change
• Glacial Lakes

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PREDICTORS VARIABLES
• Temperature
• Precipitation
• Debris cover
• Air Temperature
• Slope and Aspect

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Temperature
Image Courtesy: A.k Prasad et al .2009
Figure 9- Middle Troposphere temperature trend over 30 years and comparison of Himalayas
west, Himalayas east and Tibetan plateau temperature trend(left).

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TEMPERATURE COMPARISON OVER HIMALAYAS AND PLAIN
REGION
Figure 10: Annual mean temperature time series (5-year running mean) averaged over
HKH (grey) and Indian land mass (yellow) from 1951 to 2018
Image Courtesy: Sabin T.P. et al. (2020)

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PRECIPITATION
Figure 11: Spatial pattern of linear trends in annual mean precipitation anomalies
from APHRODITE data from 1951 to 2015. The triangles are from the trend per
decade based on CMA-GMLP for 1901–2013 periods
Image Courtesy: Sabin T.P. et al. (2020)

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OBSERVATIONS
Figure 12 - Observations by P.k Garg et al. 2017 for the Glaciers Gangotri, Dokriani,
Chorabari and Pindari.

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Period of 1962-2001/2002 Period of 2001/2002-2010/2011
Number of glaciers 324 Number of glaciers 238
Area in 1962(sq. km) 946.4+50 Area in 1962(sq. km) 751.9+43.3
Area in 2001/2002(sq.
km)
848.7+48.9 Area in 2001/2002(sq.
km)
743.4+31.1
Loss in Area(sq km) 97.7+9 Loss in Area(sq km) 8.5+4
Loss in Area(%) 11 Loss in Area(%) 1.1
Table 2: Observations by Brahmbhatt et al. 2017 for Chenab basin in Western
Himalayas

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28 Glaciers at Kosi Basin
Figure 13: Observations shown by Salerno et al. 2017 on 28 Glaciers at South facing
glaciers in Kosi basin

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Discussion
ΔElevation ΔSurface Area ΔTerminus ΔSLA
Slope 0.73 -0.79 -0.44 -0.60
Min Elevation 0.07 -0.25 0.3 0.16
Debris cover -0.44 0.60 0.41 0.32
Debris
Thickness
-0.36 0.35 0.38 0.46
Pond Density -0.68 0.55 -0.02 0.58
SLA -0.47 0.37 0.19 0.28
Surface Area -0.58 0.64 0.20 0.68
Table 4: Salerno et al. 2017 shows Correlations between the indicator variables and Predictor
variables

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• The smaller glaciers show a faster percentage change in area than the large glaciers.
• 158 glaciers were observed having no debris cover, which shows 14% of loss in surface
area and In glaciers with 40 % debris cover, 8% of deglaciation was observed for the
period of 1962-2001. The same analysis was carried out for the period of 2001/2002-
2010/2011. More surface area loss was observed in debris-free than in debris cover
glaciers.
• The glaciers located at higher altitudes are supposed to have lesser area retreat in
comparison to the glaciers located at a lower altitude because the high altitude is less
efficient at holding heat energy than denser, lower air.
• Slope controls the annual budget of glacier mass change. The glaciers with higher
slopes have a much greater turnover of glacier mass than glaciers with a low budget.
Slope controls the velocity and energy budget of glaciers. These two processes control
the mass balance of glaciers and subsequently the response of glaciers to changes in
mass balance.

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• South facing valleys have gentle surface gradients because they have been deeply
excavated by the south Asian monsoon. south-facing glaciers, which have flatter
downstream areas, tend to be more subject to lowering of the glacier surface, to
developing supraglacial ponds and to shift their SLAs upwards. Glaciers deviating from
the south orientation, which are steeper, tend to lose more surface area and their termini
retreat.
• The debris coverage and thickness were not found to be significantly responsible for the
development of supraglacial ponds, the elevation changes, or the shift in SLAs. On the
other hand, reduced losses of surface area are observable for those glaciers with more
debris coverage.

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Conclusion
• Majority of glaciers are retreating in the Himalayas regions due to factors like increasing
temperature and precipitation trend.
• With the decreasing surface area , debris covered area is increasing but debris thickness is the
factor controlling the glacier changes like SLA shift, Terminus change but not confident
about areal change..
• Other factor such as aspect plays important role because of excavation due to Indian south
monsoon and slope because the movement of mass balance depend on it.
• Glaciers with large surface area shows less decrease in surface area percentage wise.
• Elevation is also important factor because of air density, air temperature and air component
that affect the glaciers.

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Research Gaps
• In terms of Methods there are not much studies present for comparing the
effectiveness of individual method.
• There are majority of glaciers which are not focused other than using Optical
remote sensing methods.
• Less focused on few factors(Tourist excavation, Urbanization etc.) in the
Himalayan region studies.
• Less Real-time Monitoring System

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Bibliography
Bhanu Pratap, Dwarika Prasad Dobhal, Rakesh Bhambri, Manish Mehta, & Vinod Chandra Tewari (2015). Four decades of glacier mass
balance observations in the Indian Himalaya. Regional Environmental Change, 16, 643-658.
Brahmbhatt, R. M., Bahuguna, I., Rathore, B. P., Kulkarni, A. V., Shah, R. D., & Nainwal, H. C. (2012). Variation of snowline and mass
balance of glaciers of Warwan and Bhut Basins of Western Himalaya using remote sensing technique. Journal of the Indian Society of
Remote Sensing, 40(4), 629-637.
Dirk Scherler, Bodo Bookhagen, & Manfred R Strecker (2011). Spatially variable response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change
affected by debris cover. Nature Geoscience, 4, 156-159.
Franco Salerno, Sudeep Thakuri, Gianni Tartari, Takayuki Nuimura, Sojiro Sunako, Akiko Sakai, & Koji Fujita (2017). Debris-covered
glacier anomaly? Morphological factors controlling changes in the mass balance, surface area, terminus position, and snow line altitude of
Himalayan glaciers. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 471, 19-31.
IPCC SR (2019) IPCC SR ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate, Chap 2. In: Hock R et al (eds) High mountain areas.
Purushottam Kumar Garg, Aparna Shukla, & Avtar Singh Jasrotia (2017). Influence of topography on glacier changes in the central
Himalaya, India. Global and Planetary Change, 155, 196-212.
Rupal M Brahmbhatt, I M Bahuguna, B P Rathore, Anil V Kulkarni, Rajesh D Shah, A S Rajawat, & Jeffrey S Kargel (2017). Significance
of glacio-morphological factors in glacier retreat: a case study of part of Chenab basin, Himalaya. Journal of Mountain Science, 14, 128-
141
Vaibhav Garg, Aditya Rajendra Kudekar, Praveen Kumar Thakur, Bhaskar R Nikam, Shiv Prasad Aggarwal, & Prakash Chauhan (2021).
Glacier Change Studies under Changing Climate Using Geospatial Tools and Techniques. Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing.

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Thank you