HR: 1340h
AN: A33A-0874    [Abstracts]
TI: An Investigation of Climate Change Impact on Snow/Ice Melts Runoff in Himalayas
AU: Selvan, M T
EM: mtamilselvan76@yahoo.com
AF: M. Tamil Selvan, C/o Dr. Sarfaraz Ahmad, Department of Geology, Aligarh Muslim University(AMU), Aligarh, UP 202002 India
AU: * Ahmad, S S
EM: sarfaraz71@yahoo.com
AF: Dr. Sarfaraz Ahmad, Lecturer, Department of Geology, Aligarh Muslim University(AMU), Aligarh, UP 202002 India
AB: Glacial density varies across Himalayas, maximum in the Sutlej and Tista basin and moderate in Jhelum and Bhagirathi basin, while least density is in Arunachal Pradesh basin. Most of the glaciers are simple type, but some glaciers are bigger in size and composite in nature. The impact of global warming is perhaps already upon the Himalayas. They are located so near the tropic of cancer that they receive more heat than it commonly reaches Temperate and Arctic glaciers. In all these areas the orographic snowline is often a little higher than regional snowline. In the Himalayas the main source of moisture which feeds the glaciers comes from three sources as Southern monsoon, Northwestern disturbances and Local convection currents. The snowline is also lower on the northern slopes than on the southern slopes. According to the climatologists, alpine glaciers, such as those in the Himalaya are particularly sensitive indicators of climate change and the trend is expected to continue this century. Present study made by the availability of GIS, Image Processing and Digital Data Sets have made the task of runoff modeling easier on the regional and local scenario. For mapping the snow-cover on local level with high resolution remote sensing data (ASTER, LANDSAT and IRS) been used, for regional level, EOS and MODIS used, which provides good images with sufficient temporal scale. Investigation shows that spatial distributions of survival index based on relief area gradient and elongation index has least climate sensitivity of the glaciers situated in the Bhagirathi basin in Ganga headwater. In a high mountain environment the influence of certain topographic variables varying greatly. Elevation is one of the variables that have been identified as having a positive effect on snow depth and other factors those influence snow accumulation and the snowpack also computed for relational study. The variations in snow cover have a major influence on regional and continental weather system. Apart from atmospheric processes, snow cover also plays important role in hydrological cycle. The hydrological response of the basin was simulated under changed climatic scenarios. The adopted changes in temperature and precipitation covered a range from 1 to 3°C and from -10 to +10 percent respectively. It was found that annual snowmelt runoff, glacier melt runoff and total stream flow for the Himalayan basin increased linearly with changes in temperature, but the most prominent effect of increase in temperature was noticed on glacier melt runoff. Contours extracted from geocoded toposheet were used to generate the Digital Elevation Model(DEM), which in turn was used for carrying out terrain analysis including generation of slope, aspect and shaded relief maps. Both slope and aspect maps were classified using density slicing, which is useful for hazardous zonation.
UR: http://www.amu.ac.in
DE: 0429 Climate dynamics (1620)
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 0720 Glaciers
DE: 0740 Snowmelt
DE: 0798 Modeling
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005