Geodetic Mass Budget Estimation of Baltoro Glacier, and Relationship with Climatic Variability

Abstract

Karakoram glaciers show heterogenous behavior and active surge events with near to balanced mass changes. In this study, I investigated mass budget for debris covered Baltoro Glacier and its tributary glaciers, and its confluence with ice surface velocity and climatic factors during three epochs 2003-2012, 2012-2017, and 2003-2017. I used geodetic method on freely available multi-temporal ASTER satellite data. An average ice surface velocity increased 8% from period 2003-2012 to 2012-2017. It is observed that Baltoro glacier shows mass budget of +0.034 ± 0.07 m w.e. a-1 from 2003-2017. The snout position is same throughout the period. Two tributary glaciers, Trango and Liligo show significant mass variations throughout the period. Precipitation shows decreasing trend and temperature show increasing trend ERA5-land reanalysis datasets. Mean thickness change along 5 km length from snout shows are -14 ± 1.1 m for period 2003-2017. Per year mass change ratio for Baltoro and its tributary glaciers is decrease 4.8% comparatively from epoch 2003-2012 to 2012-2017. It is recommended to investigate the glacier mass changes with climatic considerations there must be short time interval with more clear time stamp.