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Climate Change and Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in Himachal Himalaya, India

2014; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-4-431-54838-6_1

2198-3542

R. B. Singh, Pankaj Kumar,

Climate variability and models

The paper deals with relationship between climate change and glacial lake outburst in Himachal Himalaya, India. To qualify this objective primarily temperature and rainfall data of Bhuntar, Manali, Dharamsala and Mandi for a period of 30 years (1977–2007) has been obtained. A land surface temperature map has been derived using Landsat TM thermal band-6 to show changes in surface temperature between year 1989 and year 2011. Mean minimum temperatures of all stations show increasing trend with varying degrees ranging from 0.1 °C at Dharamsala to 2 °C at Mandi. In the Spiti valley, maximum surface temperature increase has been noticed between the heights of 4,000–5,000 m. The total annual rainfall for the state is 149 cm and the total annual number of rainy days is 65. Glacial lakes are a common feature at altitudes of 4,500–5,500 m in many river basins of the Himalaya. In order to identify potential Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs), the present paper uses a technique adopted by Clague and Mathews (1973) for estimating maximum instantaneous discharge from a lake at the time of outburst. A total of 65 glacial lakes have been mapped in Chamba, Lahaul & Spiti and Kinnaur district, of which 23 have been identified as potential GLOFs.