BritInn Fellowship for Dr. Adina Racoviteanu

The collaborative work of Dr. Adina Racoviteanu and Dr. Lindsey Nicholson funded by BritInn focuses on the use of satellite data to quantify surface characteristics of debris-covered glacier surfaces (for example identifying supra-glacial lakes and/or exposed ice cliffs) in greater detail, and upscaling these characteristics over larger areas on a glacier-by-glacier basis. This is crucial for improving estimates of glacier change, meltwater production and glacier hazard potential using numerical models. During this collaboration we will develop and test methods to extract texture and thermal indices of surface properties using high–resolution satellite imagery from various sensors for the surface of debris-covered glaciers in the Khumbu area of Nepal, notably the 2-m spatial resolution Pleiades imagery, available at the host institution through the GlHima-Sat project (http://acinn.uibk.ac.at/research/ice-and-climate/projects/glhima-sat).

Glaciers of the Hindu-Kush Himalaya and the Andes often have glacier tongues covered in rock debris caused by mass–wasting processes (rock fall and rockslides from the steep valley sides). The surface of so-called debris-covered glaciers is highly heterogeneous, including lakes, steep and shallow slopes of various aspects, variable debris thickness and exposed ice cliffs, associated with differing ice ablation rates. Understanding the composition of the glacier surface is essential for a proper understanding of glacier hydrology.

BritInn Fellowship Report

An example of the complex surface terrain of the debris-covered Ngozumpa glacier in Nepal seen in the foreground with Cholatse peak in the background. Photo credit: Lindsey Nicholson