Glaciological characteristics of the ablation zone of Baltoro glacier, Karakoram, Pakistan

Baltoro glacier in the Karakoram, Pakistan, is one of the world’s largest valley glaciers. It drains an area of about 1500km2 and is >60km long. In 2004 an Italian/German expedition carried out a glaciological field program on the ablation zone of the glacier, focusing on the ablation conditions and the dynamic state of the glacier. As Baltoro glacier is a debris-covered glacier, ice ablation also depends on the debris properties. Stake measurements of ice ablation and debris cover in combination with meteorological data from automatic weather stations close by have been used to determine the local melt conditions. Results from these calculations have been combined with an analysis of different classes of surface cover and information about precipitation, using remote-sensing techniques, in order to calculate mass fluxes for the upper part of Baltoro glacier. The dynamic state of the glacier has been investigated by GPS-based surface velocity measurements along the stake network. A comparison of these short-term measurements during the melt season with surface velocities computed from feature tracking of satellite images shows a high seasonal variability of the ice motion. We have shown that this variability is up to 100% of the annual mean velocity. On the basis of these investigations, the mass fluxes at the Concordia cross-section have been quantified. This approach can now be used together with the ablation calculations to reconstruct the variability of glacier extent and volume in the past using available climate data from the central Karakoram. From the comparison of historical measurements and photographs it is shown that the snout of Baltoro glacier is oscillating back and forth a couple of hundred metres. Otherwise it seems not to react with the same magnitude as other glaciers to the climatic change. Elevation changes at Concordia are a few tens of metres at the most.
 
Citation proposal
Christoph Mayer (Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities) - Guglielmina Diolaiuti (Università degli Studi di Milano) (2011) . Glaciological characteristics of the ablation zone of Baltoro glacier, Karakoram, Pakistan. https://geoportal.mountaingenius.org/geonetwork/srv/api/records/95317ed4-8bc4-4a8e-b782-0900ffff7091
 

INSPIRE

Identification

File identifier
95317ed4-8bc4-4a8e-b782-0900ffff7091   XML
Online resource
Protocol
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
Resource identifier
Metadata language
eng
Encoding
Format
Version
Projection
 

Classification of data and services

Topic category
 

Classification of data and services

Coupled resource
Coupled resource
 
 

Classification of data and services

Coupled resource
Coupled resource
 
 

Keywords

Other keywords
Keywords ( Theme )
  • glacier ablation, debris covered glacier, karakoram
Keywords ( Theme )
  • SHARE , SEED
 
 

Geographic coverage

N
S
E
W


 

Temporal reference

Temporal extent
Temporal extent
Date ( Publication )
2011-06-10T08:00:00
 

Quality and validity

Lineage
 

Conformity

Conformity
Conformity
 

Conformity

Conformity
Conformity
 

Restrictions on access and use

Access constraints
 

Restrictions on access and use

 

Responsible organization (s)

Contact for the resource
Organisation name
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Email
Christoph Mayer <Christoph.Mayer@lrz.badw-muenchen.de>
Organisation name
Università degli Studi di Milano
Email
guglielmina.diolaiuti@unimi.it
 

Responsible organization (s)

Contact for the resource
Organisation name
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Email
Christoph Mayer <Christoph.Mayer@lrz.badw-muenchen.de>
Organisation name
Università degli Studi di Milano
Email
guglielmina.diolaiuti@unimi.it
 

Metadata information

Contact for the metadata
Organisation name
Ev-K2-CNR
Email
metadata@evk2cnr.org
Date stamp
2014-06-29T17:01:12
Metadata language
eng
Character set
UTF8
 
 

SDS

Conformance class 1: invocable

Access Point URL
Endpoint URL
Technical specification
 

Conformance class 2: interoperable

Coordinate reference system
 
Quality of Service
 
Access constraints
Limitation
 
Use constraints
Limitation
 
Responsible custodian
Contact for the resource
 
 

Conformance class 3: harmonized

 
 

  Overviews

thumbnail

  Provided by

  Share on social sites

         

  Views

Read here the full details and access to the data.

  Associated resources

Not available