Impact of varying debris cover thickness on catchment scale ablation: a case study for Koxkar glacier in the Tien Shan

Abstract. To quantify the ablation processes on a debris covered glacier, a simple distributed ablation model has been developed and applied to a selected glacier. For this purpose, a bundle of field measurements was carried out to collect empirical data. A morphometric analysis of the glacier surface enables us to statistically capture the areal distribution of topographic features that influence debris thickness and consequently ablation. Remote sensing techniques, using high resolution satellite imagery, were used to extrapolate the ground truth results to the whole ablation area and to map and classify melt-relevant surface types. As a result, a practically applicable method is presented, that allows the estimation of ablation on a debris covered glacier by combining field data and remote sensing information. The sub-debris ice ablation accounts for about 19% of the entire ice ablation, while the percentage of the moraine covered area accounts for approximately 32% of the entire glacerized area. Although the ice cliffs occupy only 1.7% of the debris covered area the melt amount accounts for approximately 15% of the total sub-debris ablation and 2.7% of the total ablation respectively. Our study highlights the influence of debris cover on the response of the glacier terminus to climate warming. Due to the fact that melt rates beyond 0.1m of moraine cover are highly restricted the shielding effect of the debris cover dominates over the temperature- and elevation dependence of the ablation in the bare ice case.