TITLE:
Glacier Area Change over Past 50 Years to Stable Phase in Drass Valley, Ladakh Himalaya (India)
AUTHORS:
M. N. Koul, I. M. Bahuguna, Ajai, A. S. Rajawat, Sadiq Ali, Sumit Koul
KEYWORDS:
Climate Change, Stability of Himalayan Glaciers, Remote Sensing GIS, Glacier Mass Balance, Benchmark Glacier
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Climate Change,
Vol.5 No.1,
March
31,
2016
ABSTRACT: Glaciers are dynamic reservoirs of constantly exchanging mass with parts of global hydrological system, process by which glaciers gain or lose snow and ice and establish a link between climate, glacier mass and glacier fluvial dynamics related directly to the behaviour of climate. Here, we report on glacier status over the past 50 years (1962-2013) on remotely-sensed volumetric changes of glaciers in Drass glacier basin, Ladakh Mountain, North-West Himalaya. Drass basin houses 150 glaciers of different dimensions predominantly (nearly 75%) by small sized glaciers. The glaciers monitored on multi-temporal satellite images of the year’s 2001, 2013 for short-term basis, and, Survey of India topographic sheets of 1965 (surveyed in 1963) on long-term basis. Machoi glacier has been selected for detailed study to assess health and fluctuation record on which observation has been made since the year 1875. The long-term monitoring (1965-2001) of 81 glaciers shows that 12.5% of glaciers have gained the area whereas 14% of large glaciers lost area 5% to 15%, and remaining 73% glaciers lost area marginally (