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Water
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Assessment of Glacier Changes
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Assessment of Glacier Changes

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water and Climate Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 February 2024) | Viewed by 3198

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Xiaojun Yao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Geography and Environment Sciences, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Interests: glacier change; GIS; big data; deep learning
Dr. Wanqin Guo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science, Northwest Institute of Eco−Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Interests: glacier change; glacier disaster; remote sensing
Dr. Meiping Sun

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Geography and Environment Sciences, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Interests: glacier change; climate change; hydrological model

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Glaciers are among the most dynamic elements of the solid Earth; they release water, scour bedrock, cool the weather in summer, and advance down valleys or retreat into high basins. Under the present climate scenarios, the ongoing rapid and perhaps accelerating trend of worldwide glacier shrinkage, on the century timescale, is most likely of nonperiodic natural phenomena. For people living in glacierized mountain valleys, glaciers supply water for drinking, irrigation, heavy industry, and electrical power. For others, the release of too much water in a short time (e.g., GLOFs) can be a life-and-death issue irrespective of whether it is linked to climate change. Therefore, glacier changes and the associated issues have been a topic of exceptional scientific interest. In this Special Issue, we welcome papers focusing on glacier change, including but not limited to glacier monitoring, glacial hydrology, and glacier disasters. Both general methodological contributions and case studies of glacier change across different regions covering a wide range of spatial scales are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Xiaojun Yao
Dr. Wanqin Guo
Dr. Meiping Sun
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • glacier monitoring
  • glacial hydrology
  • glacier change
  • glacier surge
  • glacier disaster

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 5849 KiB  
Article
Micrometeorological Analysis and Glacier Ablation Simulation in East Kunlun
by Weisheng Wang, Meiping Sun, Yanjun Che, Xiaojun Yao, Mingjun Zhang and Shuting Niu
Water 2023, 15(19), 3517; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15193517 - 9 Oct 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 807
Abstract
Worldwide, there are great challenges for meteorological monitoring and glacier ablation monitoring in high-altitude mountain areas. It is often difficult to capture fine-scale climate and glacial changes in high-altitude mountainous areas due to the harsh natural environment and the extreme lack of observational [...] Read more.
Worldwide, there are great challenges for meteorological monitoring and glacier ablation monitoring in high-altitude mountain areas. It is often difficult to capture fine-scale climate and glacial changes in high-altitude mountainous areas due to the harsh natural environment and the extreme lack of observational sites. Based on high-altitude meteorological stations erected on the eastern shore of Aqikkule Lake (AQK) and at the terminus of Shenshechuan Glacier (SSG), as well as on mass balance data from SSG, the characteristics and correlation of temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction of the two regions, and the mass balance in the ablation area of SSG from 30 May 2022 to 18 May 2023 were analyzed, and the average melting depth of SSG was simulated. The results indicate the following: (1) The average annual temperature of AQK and the terminus of SSG is −3.7 °C and −7.7 °C, respectively, and the vertical lapse rate of temperature in the summer half of the year is greater than that in the winter half of the year. Precipitation timing has a great influence on daily temperature differences. (2) Precipitation in both places is concentrated in summer; the glaciers in this area are of the summer recharge type, and precipitation has a significant reducing effect on the solar incident radiation and increases the relative humidity in this region. (3) AQK and SSG both have local circulation development, in the area of AQK all year round due to the lake effect, while the terminus of SSG only has the development of valley winds in the summer, being controlled in the winter by the westerly wind belt. (4) The average mass balance value of the ablation area of SSG was −1786 mm as measured by the range poles method. The average annual ablation depth of SSG simulated by using the empirical formula was 587–597 mm, which is not large compared with other glacier areas in the Tibetan Plateau, and it has the characteristics of typical continental-type glaciers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Glacier Changes)
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24 pages, 3086 KiB  
Article
A Review of Karakoram Glacier Anomalies in High Mountains Asia
by Jiawei Li, Meiping Sun, Xiaojun Yao, Hongyu Duan, Cong Zhang, Shuyang Wang, Shuting Niu and Xin Yan
Water 2023, 15(18), 3215; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15183215 - 9 Sep 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1835
Abstract
Influenced by global warming, glaciers in High Mountains Asia (HMA) generally show a trend of retreat and thinning, but in Karakoram, Pamir, and West Kunlun there is a trend of glacier stabilization or even a weak advance. In this study, using a bibliometric [...] Read more.
Influenced by global warming, glaciers in High Mountains Asia (HMA) generally show a trend of retreat and thinning, but in Karakoram, Pamir, and West Kunlun there is a trend of glacier stabilization or even a weak advance. In this study, using a bibliometric analysis, we systematically sorted the area, mass balance, and elevation changes of the glaciers in Karakoram and summarized the glacier surges in HMA. The study shows that, since the 1970s, the glaciers in the Karakoram region have experienced a weak positive mass balance, with weakly reducing area and the increasing surface elevation. The north slope of Chogori Peak and the Keltsing River Basin presented a glacier retreat rate with a fast to slow trend. The anomaly is mainly due to low summer temperatures and heavy precipitation in winter and spring in the Karakoram region. There are a large number of surging glaciers in the Karakoram Mountains, the Pamir Plateau, and the West Kunlun region in the western part of HMA, especially in the Karakoram Mountains and the Pamir Plateau, which account for more than 70% of the number of surging glaciers in the entire HMA. The glaciers in the Karakoram and Kunlun Mountains are mainly affected by the synergistic influence of various factors, such as hydrothermal conditions, atmospheric circulation, and topography. However, the glaciers in the Pamir region are mainly influenced by the thermal mechanism of the glacier surge. The glaciers in and around Karakoram are critical to the hydrological response to climate change, and glacial meltwater is an important freshwater resource in arid and semi-arid regions of South and Central Asia, as well as in western China. Therefore, changes in the Karakoram anomaly will remain a hot research topic in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Glacier Changes)
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