G53A-01
Asia High Mountain Glacier Mass Balance
Friday, 18 December 2015: 13:40
2002 (Moscone West)
C.K. Shum1, Xiaoli Su1, Kun Shang1, J. Graham Cogley2, Guoqing Zhang3, Ian M Howat4, Alexander Braun5 and Chung-Yen Kuo6, (1)The Ohio State University, Division of Geodetic Science, Columbus, OH, United States, (2)Trent University, Department of Geographjyu, Peterborough, ON, Canada, (3)ITP Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, (4)OH St Univ-Earth Sciences, Columbus, OH, United States, (5)Queens University, Geological Science and Geological Engineering, Kingston, ON, Canada, (6)NCKU National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
Abstract:
The Asian High Mountain encompassing the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau has the largest glaciated regions in the world outside of Greenland and Antarctica. The Tibetan Plateau is the source or headwater of many major river systems, which provide water resources to more than a billion people downstream. The impact of climate change on the Tibetan Plateau physical processes, including mountain glacier wastage, permafrost active layer thickening, the timing and the quantity of the perennial snowpack melt affecting upstream catchments, river runoffs, land-use, have significant effects on downstream water resources. Exact quantification of the Asian High Mountain glacier wastage or its mass balance on how much of the melt water contributes to early 21st century global sea-level rise, remain illusive or the published results are arguably controversial. The recent observed significant increase of freshwater storage within the Tibetan Plateaus remains a limitation to exactly quantify mountain glacier wastage. Here, we provide an updated estimate of Asia high mountain glacier mass balance using satellite geodetic observations during the last decade, accounting for the hydrologic and other processes, and validated against available in situ mass balance data.
