Glacier’s Response Over Gradual Increase of Supra-Debris in Valley Glacier, Central Himalaya

Himalayan glaciers accumulate debris over their surfaces, and almost all the valley glacier having debris in ablation zone impacts the glacier lifecycle. In this study an attempt is made to assess the information about changes in glacier surface height and increase in debris load over time. This study revealed the negative impact of debris load on glacier over time, as the load increases surface height reduces. An average rate of surface lowering observed is 2.15 ± 1.44m−1a (vE) and the annual increase rate of debris cover is 0.485 km2 with data uncertainty (dE) of ± 0.0003 km2. Classification carried out using RF classifier for the sentinel data of 2015 and 2020 the accuracy is (cE) 86.65%. Overall, this study suggests the increase of debris load reduces the glacier surface height reduces leading the loss of ice volume.