Estimation of Ice Thickness of the Satopanth Glacier, Central Himalaya Using Ground Penetrating Radar

Glaciohydrology of the Himalaya-Karakoram

Understanding the response of Himalayan-Karakoram (HK) rivers to climate change is crucial for ~1 billion people who partly depend on these water resources. Policy-makers tasked with sustainable water resources management require an assessment of the rivers' current status and potential future changes. We show that glacier and snow melt are important components of HK rivers, with greater hydrological importance for the Indus basin than for the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins. Total river runoff, glacier melt, and seasonality of flow are projected to increase until the 2050s, with some exceptions and large uncertainties. Critical knowledge gaps severely affect modeled contributions of different runoff components, future runoff volumes, and seasonality. Therefore, comprehensive field observation-based and remote sensing-based methods and models are needed.

Estimation of Ice Thickness and the Features of Subglacial Media Detected by Ground Penetrating Radar at the Baishui River Glacier No. 1 in Mt. Yulong, China

Using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), we measured and estimated the ice thickness of the Baishui River Glacier No. 1 of Yulong Snow Mountain. According to the position of the reflected media from the GPR image, combined with the radar waveform amplitude and polarity change information, the ice thickness and the changing medium position at the bottom of this temperate glacier were identified. Water paths were found in the measured ice, including ice caves and crevasses. A debris-rich ice layer was found at the bottom of the glacier, which produces strong abrasion and ploughing action at the bedrock surface. This results in the formation of different detrital layers stagnated at the ice-bedrock interface and numerous crevasses on the bedrock surface. Based on the obtained ice thickness and differential GPS data, combined with Landsat images, the kriging interpolation method was used to obtain grid data. The average ice thickness was 52.48 m and between 4740 and 4890 m above sea level, with a maximum depth of 92.83 m. The bedrock topography map of this area was drawn using digital elevation model from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The central part of the glacier was characterized by small ice basins with distributed ice steps and ice ridges at the upper and lower parts.