the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Annual to seasonal glacier mass balance in High Mountain Asia derived from Pléiades stereo images: examples from the Pamir and the Tibetan Plateau
Daniel Falaschi
Atanu Bhattacharya
Gregoire Guillet
Lei Huang
Owen King
Kriti Mukherjee
Philipp Rastner
Tandong Yao
Tobias Bolch
Abstract. Glaciers are crucial sources of freshwater in particular for the arid lowlands surrounding High Mountain Asia. In order to better constrain glacio-hydrological models, annual, or even better, seasonal information about glacier mass changes is highly beneficial. In this study, we test the suitability of very high-resolution Pleiades DEMs to measure glacier-wide mass balance at annual and seasonal scales in two regions of High Mountain Asia (Muztagh Ata in Eastern Pamir and parts of Western Nyainqêntanglha, South-central Tibetan Plateau), where recent estimates have shown contrasting glacier behavior. We find that the average annual mass balance in Muztagh Ata between 2020 and 2022 was -0.11 ±0.21 m w.e. a-1, suggesting the continuation of a recent phase of slight mass loss following a prolonged period of balanced mass budgets previously observed. The mean annual mass balance in Western Nyainqêntanglha for the same period was highly negative (-0.60 ±0.15 m w.e. a-1 on average), suggesting increased mass loss rates. The 2022 winter (+0.21 ±0.24 m w.e.) and summer (-0.31 ±0.15 m w.e.) mass budgets in Muztag Ata and Western Nyainqêntanglha (-0.04 ±0.27 m w.e. [winter]; -0.66 ±0.07 m w.e. [summer]) suggest winter and summer accumulation-type regimes, respectively. We support our findings by implementing a Sentinel-1–based Glacier Index to identify the firn and wet snow areas on glaciers and characterize accumulation type. The good match between the geodetic and Glacier Index results demonstrates the potential of very high-resolution Pleiades data to monitor mass balance at short time scales and improves our understanding of glacier accumulation regimes across High Mountain Asia.
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Daniel Falaschi et al.
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on tc-2022-264', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Apr 2023
The paper deals with mass inter- and intra- annual ballance of glaciers in High Asia fociusing at two sites one in Eastern Pamirs and the second in the central Tibetan Plateau. It uses Pleiades stereo data for derivation of DSMs which are compared by differencing. A number of corections are applied prior to the differencing. Findings for the two specific sites are presented. Several auxiliary methods are utlized such as classification of snow type from Sentinel-2 data for detection of the accumulation type of gaciers or Glacier Index. The potential of Pleiades data to monitor mountain glaciers is dicussed.
The manuscript has high scientifical quality and is recomended for publication with minor changes.
Minor comments:
35: Consider using the name “Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains” instead of “Nyainqêntanglha” as it is widely used in the literature. The Chinese version has more than variants for instance “Nyainqentanglha” in Bolch et al. 2010. The English version is unambiguous and appropriate.
140: Use larger font for the coordinates around on the map frame and remove left and bottom coordinates as they are duplicates.
190: What is the meaning of the “oversampled GSD”? Does this mean that the real spatial resolution is different? For how much?
220: “it can be reduced to a few decimeters after DEM coregistration” This needs a citation.
205: The sentence starting with “Such is the case of…” is somehow abrupt.
210: Table 1: add column Δt for each site to show what are the tine differences. Otherwise the reader is forced to do an awkward calculation.
220: You should expand “AMSAG” if it is an abbreviation.
240: three sentences starting with “According to ERA…“ are not well understandable. Please reword.
250: What was the source of the SLA?
280, 285: This para id cryptic. Please reword it.
295: “appreciated” to “seen”
295: In Figure 2 the (c) and (d) and (e) and (f) are not localized. Are these subsets at terminus or in the summit part of the glacier? Pleas make this clear.
295: Figure 2 caption: “in the in the Muztag..”
305: the sentence “According to the authors” should be merged with the previous sentence.
385: You can remove the sentence “Alternatively Belart et al….” as it is not needed.
425: Why not using the classification of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau based on the accumulation regime by Maussion et al. 2014?
Maussion, F., Scherer, D., Mölg, T., Collier, E., Curio, J., & Finkelnburg, R. (2014). Precipitation seasonality and variability over the Tibetan Plateau as resolved by the High Asia Reanalysis. Journal of Climate, 27(5), 1910-1927.
650: “in-balance”, would it be better to use “balanced” instead?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2022-264-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-AC1-supplement.pdf
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
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RC2: 'RefereeComment_tc-2022-264_discussion_Falaschi_GMB_HMA_280523', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 May 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-RC2-supplement.pdf
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-AC2-supplement.pdf
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
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RC3: 'Comment on tc-2022-264', César Deschamps-Berger, 31 May 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-RC3-supplement.pdf
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AC3: 'Reply to Cesar Deschamps-Berger', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-AC3-supplement.pdf
-
AC3: 'Reply to Cesar Deschamps-Berger', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on tc-2022-264', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Apr 2023
The paper deals with mass inter- and intra- annual ballance of glaciers in High Asia fociusing at two sites one in Eastern Pamirs and the second in the central Tibetan Plateau. It uses Pleiades stereo data for derivation of DSMs which are compared by differencing. A number of corections are applied prior to the differencing. Findings for the two specific sites are presented. Several auxiliary methods are utlized such as classification of snow type from Sentinel-2 data for detection of the accumulation type of gaciers or Glacier Index. The potential of Pleiades data to monitor mountain glaciers is dicussed.
The manuscript has high scientifical quality and is recomended for publication with minor changes.
Minor comments:
35: Consider using the name “Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains” instead of “Nyainqêntanglha” as it is widely used in the literature. The Chinese version has more than variants for instance “Nyainqentanglha” in Bolch et al. 2010. The English version is unambiguous and appropriate.
140: Use larger font for the coordinates around on the map frame and remove left and bottom coordinates as they are duplicates.
190: What is the meaning of the “oversampled GSD”? Does this mean that the real spatial resolution is different? For how much?
220: “it can be reduced to a few decimeters after DEM coregistration” This needs a citation.
205: The sentence starting with “Such is the case of…” is somehow abrupt.
210: Table 1: add column Δt for each site to show what are the tine differences. Otherwise the reader is forced to do an awkward calculation.
220: You should expand “AMSAG” if it is an abbreviation.
240: three sentences starting with “According to ERA…“ are not well understandable. Please reword.
250: What was the source of the SLA?
280, 285: This para id cryptic. Please reword it.
295: “appreciated” to “seen”
295: In Figure 2 the (c) and (d) and (e) and (f) are not localized. Are these subsets at terminus or in the summit part of the glacier? Pleas make this clear.
295: Figure 2 caption: “in the in the Muztag..”
305: the sentence “According to the authors” should be merged with the previous sentence.
385: You can remove the sentence “Alternatively Belart et al….” as it is not needed.
425: Why not using the classification of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau based on the accumulation regime by Maussion et al. 2014?
Maussion, F., Scherer, D., Mölg, T., Collier, E., Curio, J., & Finkelnburg, R. (2014). Precipitation seasonality and variability over the Tibetan Plateau as resolved by the High Asia Reanalysis. Journal of Climate, 27(5), 1910-1927.
650: “in-balance”, would it be better to use “balanced” instead?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2022-264-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-AC1-supplement.pdf
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
-
RC2: 'RefereeComment_tc-2022-264_discussion_Falaschi_GMB_HMA_280523', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 May 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-RC2-supplement.pdf
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-AC2-supplement.pdf
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
-
RC3: 'Comment on tc-2022-264', César Deschamps-Berger, 31 May 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-RC3-supplement.pdf
-
AC3: 'Reply to Cesar Deschamps-Berger', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-264/tc-2022-264-AC3-supplement.pdf
-
AC3: 'Reply to Cesar Deschamps-Berger', Daniel Falaschi, 11 Jul 2023
Daniel Falaschi et al.
Daniel Falaschi et al.
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