Mass Balance Assessment of Zemu Glacier: An ELA-AAR Based Approach

Monitoring of glaciers has become a necessity due to the recent changes in regional climate as well as the increase in major development activities, downstream of glacier-fed rivers. Monitoring of the Zemu glacier, the largest glacier in the eastern Himalayas holds a great significance as it has a major contribution to the discharge of the Teesta River which has huge socio-economic importance. Due to lack of connectivity and harsh terrain, it is difficult to obtain field-based data from the Zemu glacier. Therefore, remote sensing methods such as Accumulation Area Ratio (AAR) are generally utilized to assess the health of the glacier. Being Summer accumulating type glacier, cloud cover and frequent snowfall during the ablation period makes it difficult to accurately map the accumulation area. This research article aims to constitute an approach to reduce this limitation to some extent by developing a relationship between equilibrium line altitude (ELA) and the specific mass balance of the glacier.