Historical and projected evolutions of glaciers in response to climate change in High Mountain Asia

Glacier changes are regarded as the conspicuous icon of climate change in High Mountain Asia (HMA) alpine environments. Multi-temporal glacier coverage is essential for mass balance estimations and understanding glacial changes in response to climate variability. However, consistent multi-temporal glacier area datasets across the HMA are limited due to challenges posed by seasonal snow and cloud cover in remote sensing satellite images. In this study, a new method is proposed to estimate glacier and nonseasonal snow (GNS) areas by combining the normalized difference snow index (NDSI) and bright temperature bands from Landsat remote sensing images in 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Meanwhile, the integrated ice dynamic Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM) is applied to simulate nine typical glaciers and project their changes using 15 general circulation models (GCMs) under four shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). The results showed that total GNS areas in HMA were estimated at 71.26 × 10³ km² in the 1990s, and decreased to 53.17 × 10³ km² in the 2020s. Massive proportions of GNS were mainly distributed in the southeast and northwest region. Tipping points of GNS indicating a transition from mass balance gain to loss during four periods were detected in the Upper Tarim basin, Inner Tibetan Plateau, Upper Yangtze river basin, Upper Brahmaputra river basin, and Upper Salween river basin. The reduction of total GNS area was attributed to significantly rising temperature and decreasing solid precipitation. The projections indicate that glacier shrinkages will be the dominant trend in the future, and most typical glaciers will experience a mass loss of 60% under SSP245 (SSP2-RCP4.5) and over 90% under SSP585 (SSP5-RCP8.5) by the end of the century. The response of glaciers to climate change is also found to be influenced by factors including local topography and elevation ranges. The findings of this study provides a better understanding of glacial dynamics in response to climate change and highlights the importance of making water resources management strategies to mitigate the influence of glacier retreat.