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Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4033
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4033
29 Jan 2025
 | 29 Jan 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for The Cryosphere (TC).

Will landscape responses reduce glacier sensitivity to climate change in High Mountain Asia? 

Stephan Harrison, Adina Racoviteanu, Sarah Shannon, Darren Jones, Karen Anderson, Neil Glasser, Jasper Knight, Anna Ranger, Arindan Mandal, Brahma Dutt Vishwakarma, Jeffrey Kargel, Dan Shugar, Umesh Haritishaya, Dongfeng Li, Aristeidis Koutroulis, Klaus Wyser, and Sam Inglis

Abstract. In High Mountain Asia (HMA) ongoing climate change threatens mountain water resources as glaciers melt, and the resulting changes in runoff and water availability are likely to have considerable negative impacts on ecological and human systems. Numerous assessments of the ways in which these glaciers will respond to climate warming have been published over the past decade. Many of these assessments have used climate model projections to argue that HMA glaciers will melt significantly this century. However, we show that this is only one way in which these glaciers might respond. An alternative pathway is one in which increasing valley-side instability releases large amounts of rock debris onto glacier surfaces. The development of extensive glacier surface debris cover is common in HMA and, if thick enough, this surface debris inhibits glacier melting to the extent that glacier ice becomes preserved under the surface debris cover. In so doing, a transition to rock glaciers may prolong the lifetime of HMA glaciers in the landscape. We call this alternative pathway the Paraglacial Transition Model. In this Perspective Article we discuss the scientific basis of this alternative view in order to better understand how HMA glaciers may respond to climate change.

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
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Short summary
Climate change is leading to a global recession of mountain glaciers, and numerical modelling...
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