Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface
Rock debris on glacier surfaces substantially modifies their behavior in comparison with climatically equivalent clean-ice glaciers. However, glacier-scale observations of the evolution of debris-covered glacier surfaces over multiple years and at the level of detail sufficient to explore these processes are rare.
Kraaijenbrink and Immerzeel [2025] present a unique dataset obtained from drone surveys of Langtang and Lirung Glaciers in the Nepal Himalaya between 2013 and 2018. The survey period includes the magnitude 7.8 2015 Gorkha earthquake, which caused a short-lived increase in velocity for Langtang Glacier and may have changed the glaciers’ internal structure.
The survey results are surprising, providing a first look at the complexity of processes that operate across the surfaces of debris-covered glaciers. The observed changes in glacier surface elevation, and hence ice volume, are highly spatially heterogeneous within and between years. However, when surface elevation change is considered over multiple years, and displacement by ice flow is accounted for, a different picture emerges, and the differences in mass balance and surface changes are reduced across and between the glaciers.
Citation: Kraaijenbrink, P. D. A., & Immerzeel, W. W. (2025). Spatial and temporal variability of the surface mass balance of debris-covered glacier tongues. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 130, e2024JF007935. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JF007935
—Ann Rowan, Editor-in-Chief, JGR: Earth Surface
Text © 2025. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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