How much ice is really being lost to climate change? This is what a team of researchers hope to reveal as they discuss an underestimation of mass loss pertaining to lake-terminating glaciers residing in the greater Himalayas due to a lack of satellite data from being unable to observe the underwater portions of the glaciers. This study holds the potential to develop new models and projections for the region’s water resources and glacier disappearance.
Image of Galong Co (Credit: Cheng Huang)
"These findings have important implications for understanding the impact of regional water resources and glacial lake outburst floods," said Dr. Guoqing Zhang, who is a professor in the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research at the Chinese Academy of Science, and lead author of the study.
Another reason this study is significant is that the mass loss of lake-terminating glaciers around the world is currently estimated to be approximately 12 percent between 2000 and 2020, or approximately 211.5 gigatons. Having a more accurate mass loss estimate for lake-terminating glaciers could also paint a better picture for land-terminating glaciers, as well.
"This emphasizes the importance of incorporating subaqueous mass loss from lake-terminating glaciers in future mass-change estimates and glacier evolution models, regardless of the study region," said Dr. Tobias Bolch, who is a professor at the Graz University of Technology, and a co-author on the study.
Dr. David Rounce, who is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and a co-author on the study, noted that lake-terminator glacier mass loss could be a large supplier of the global mass loss for the rest of the 21st century since glaciers that have already experience enormous mass loss might disappear faster using current estimates.
"By more accurately accounting for glacier mass loss, researchers can better predict future water resource availability in the sensitive mountain region," said Tandong Yao, who is a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and co-chairs Third Pole Environment and is a co-author on the study.
What new discoveries will scientists make about glacier mass loss in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
Sources: Nature Geoscience, EurekAlert!
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