Siri Jodha Khalsa: Assessing role of glaciers and seasonal snow hydrology of mountains of high Asia

Establishing a Collaborative Effort to Assess the Role of Glaciers and

Seasonal Snow Cover in the Hydrology of the Mountains of High Asia

(a.k.a. CHARIS)

R. Armstrong, M. Williams, A. Barrett, M. J. Brodzik, F. Fetterer, Siri Jodha S. Khalsa, A. Racoviteanu,

A. Rasmussen, B. Raup, A. Wilson, U. Horodyskyj

http://nsidc.org/charis

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HMGWP Workshop, Huaraz, Peru, July 2013

THE NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE DATA CENTER (NSIDC)UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER

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The National Snow and Ice Data Center…

Provides tools for

data access

Researches the cryosphere and data science

Educates the public about the

cryosphereSupports data users

Manages and distributes scientific data

Supports local and traditional

knowledge

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• Conducts interdisciplinary (cryosphere, climate, hydrology, ecology and biochemistry) research in polar and alpine regionsinstaar.colorado.edu

@instaar

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CHARIS Project Outline

• Geographic coverage • Goals • Asian Partners • Data sources • Methods • Validation

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Partner Countries: Bhutan Nepal India Pakistan Afghanistan Kazakhstan Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan

Geographic Coverage = “High Asia”

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River Basins: Brahmaputra Ganges Indus Amu Darya Syr Darya


CHARIS Project Goals

• In collaboration with CHARIS’ Asian Partners, this project will make fundamental contributions to an improved understanding of the water resources of High Asia.

• The amount, timing and spatial patterns of snow and ice melt are important in providing water for downstream irrigation, hydropower generation and general consumption.

• The specific goal is to perform a systematic assessment of the individual contributions of seasonal snow melt and glacier ice melt to water resources across the study region, using the best available data sources and methods.

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CHARIS: Contribution to High Asia Runoff from Ice and Snow


CHARIS Project Goals

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Glacier ? Snow ? Rain? Groundwater ?

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CHARIS: Contribution to High Asia Runoff from Ice and Snow


Data Sources

• Elevation: SRTM, SPOT, ASTER, Topographical Maps

• Glacier coverage: GLIMS, MODICE

• Seasonal snow cover: Gap-filled daily MODIS

• Catchment basin outlines: GRDC, watershed analysis

• River discharge data: GRDC and Project Partners

• Reanalysis products (NASA MERRA, ECMWF ERA-Interim, NCEP CFSR): T, q, P

• Surface Albedo: MODIS, in situ

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Digital Elevation Model (DEM) Evaluation

• SRTM • Global 90m resolution • Voids common in mountainous terrain • Several groups have released using different

strategies for void filling and hydrologic conditioning • Stereoscopy from satellite image pairs

• Individual scenes (ASTER, SPOT, Corona. Etc.) • Global ASTER-based DEM

• 30m resolution • Composite of many scenes • Automated, has undetected errors

• ICESat data for vertical biases and horizontal offsets

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Elevation – GDEM2

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GDEM Hillshade

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"mole runs"


Elevation – GDEM2

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Elevation – CGIAR version of SRTM final

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Elevation – HydroSHEDs version of SRTM

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SRTM Voids

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Methods

• Glaciers: In addition to using glacier outlines from the GLIMS database (http://nsidc.org/glims), we determine the annual residual coverage of ice across the study area using a consistent, automated remote sensing method, MODICE.

• Seasonal snow cover: We generate daily gap-filled snow cover for the study region derived from the MODIS standard 500m snow product.

• We estimate the separate contributions of seasonal snow melt and glacier ice melt to basin discharge across the study region using enhanced degree-day, ablation gradient, and other melt models.

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Barrett, et al., American Geophysical Union Annual Fall Meeting, 2012

Annual snow cover frequency: 2001 to 2011

MODIS Tiles h23v05 h24v05 h25v06


Time series of snow covered area in select basins across HKH

Barrett, et al., American Geophysical Union Annual Fall Meeting, 2012


Inter-annual variability of snow melt runoff


Melt Model Validation

• Compare regional scale results with small sub-basin studies based on local scale meteorological inputs and more sophisticated energy balance modeling approaches.

• Compare regional scale assessments with results in selected sub-basins using isotopic and geochemical tracers in hydrologic mixing models; also estimate the contribution of groundwater and rainfall to these rivers using the same mixing models.

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Snow and Ice Albedo

• Surface energy input, and thus melt rate, are functions of albedo

• Can vary from .9 for new snow to .2 for old or dirty snow

• Variability in region being investigated • MOD43 time series at locations across Himalaya • Spatial variations mapped with field spectroradiometer • Temporal variations monitored at a weather station on

Ngozumpa Glacier in the Khumbu region o Time‐lapse camera o Up and down-looking pyranometers o Air temperature and humidity

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MOD43 Albedo time series - Eastern Himalaya

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MOD43 Albedo time series - Western Himalaya

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CHARIS Partner Workshop in Almaty – May 2013

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Summary

• CHARIS is leading a trans-national effort to improve our understanding of regional water resources in High Asia.

• While transferring knowledge and skills to Project Partners we also engage in joint research activities, such as cooperative field studies and model development.

• We will freely share the tools and techniques that are developed by CHARIS.

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The CHARIS Team thanks you for your attention –http://nsidc.org/charis

Documents

Siri Jodha Khalsa: Assessing role of glaciers and seasonal snow hydrology of mountains of high Asia