Advances in Remote Sensing for Assessing High Altitude Glacio-Hydrology - with a Focus on High Mountain Asia

Abstract:

Meltwater released by glaciers can be of high importance for the overall run-off and thus affect society and development of mountainous regions and their forelands. However, glaciers are mostly located in harsh and remote environment and detailed in-situ measurements are impossible or limited to few glaciers. This lack of measurements of glacier characteristics (e.g. area, debris cover, flow) and mass budgets hampers a correct glacio-hydrologic modelling and representation of processes in advanced simulation models. Remote sensing has been proven a powerful tool in providing essential data to fill this gap. The most basic information in this respect is the location and area of the glaciers. A global and some regional inventories exist, but the uncertainties and differences among them are high, especially with respect to the upper accumulation area and debris cover. I here present a multi-method approach to map glaciers more precisely based on remote sensing data and combining image ratioing (using visible, infrared and thermal bands), micro-wave coherence images, terrain analysis, differencing of digital elevation models (DEMs) and, if available, high resolution images. DEM differencing is used to provide region-wide mass balance assessments, but volume to mass conversion and data voids introduce uncertainties. For High Mountain Asia (HMA), a crucial region in terms of water resources and glacier changes, most studies concentrate on the period after the year 2000 with the SRTM-DEM as baseline data set. However, declassified satellite data from the 1960s and 1970s also exist and allowed to extend the data record back in time for several regions in HMA. Using an example from an ice-covered area of ~5000 km² in the Aksu-Tarim catchment in Central Tien Shan the importance of remote sensing for glacio-hydrological modelling is shown. This is especially true for debris-covered and surge-type glaciers whose reaction to climate is still not fully understood. Therefore, special emphasis is given on the opportunities and challenges of remote sensing to assess the characteristics of the glaciers (e.g. debris thickness, presence of supra-glacial lakes and ice cliffs), as well as their changes in length, area, mass and velocity to provide calibration and validation data for glacio-hydrological models.