In July this year, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite photographed a major chunk of glacial ice shelf (5,800 sq. km) breaking off from one of Antarctica’s floating ice platforms, called Larsen C, shrinking its size by at least 10 percent. Melting glaciers is perhaps the most tangible reality of climate change, more so in the Himalayan region, since the gradual melting of Himalayan glaciers and snowfields supply freshwater to populations in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Which is why monitoring the speed of deglaciation is more significant than ever,since it helps researchers to understand the implications they may have on populations depending on the meltwater. But are there more factors other than the climate contributing to the retreat of glaciers? A group of researchers from M.G. Science Institute, Ahmedabad; Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Department of Hydrology & Water Resources University of Arizona, Tucson, studied the Himalayan glaciers in the Chenab basin to understand the contributing factors to glacier retreat. They considered glacio-morphological factors such as aspect, length, area of the glaciers and area of debris cover, and altitude of snowline at the end of ablation. While 324 glaciers studied between 1962-2001/02 showed a 11% loss in glacial area, 238 of them observed between 2001/02 and 2010/11 showed only a loss of 1.1%. Less glacial shrinkage has been observed in longer glaciers with a larger area, than in the smaller ones. The study also found that glaciers in lower altitudes are prone to faster retreat than higher altitude ones. Debris covered glaciers were found to be least likely to melt, compared to debris free glaciers. Of the 158 glaciers found to have no debris cover, a 14% loss of area has been observed. Whereas glaciers with 40% debris cover were found to have retreated only to the tune of 8%. Another factor found to have significant effect on glacier retreat is the equilibrium line altitude (ELA). Between 2001/02–2010/11, glaciers below ELA showed 4.6% of deglaciation while ones above ELA experienced only 1.1%. Thus, factors like altitude, debris cover and ELA are found to be significant influencers in accelerating the retreat among glaciers in Chenab basin. While the effects of climate change on the glaciers are widely studied, this study provides a clue to other factors affecting them, and could be used to protect the disappearing glaciers.
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