Water related effects of changes in glacier mass balance and river runoff in western Himalaya, India: past, present and future (GLACINDIA)

The GLACINDIA project has promoted collaboration between Indian and Norwegian scientists. Exchange visits and knowledge transfer have been an integrated part of all project work packages. During fieldwork at Chhota Shigri and Patsio Glaciers in NW Himalaya, Indian scientists from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) took part in order to promote knowledge transfer. Indian scientists also visited Norway and they obtained lab education/training, using state-of-the-art techniques/equipment and methodology. The project has obtained annual glacier mass balance data as input to glacier mass balance modelling. Daily meteorological data have been obtained from the Patsio glacier by means of an automatic weather station (AWS). The aim was to assess the response of meltwater streamflow to climate change and to quantify the influence of changes in meltwater production due to changes in temperature/energy balance, changes in precipitation/rain, and the snow precipitation fraction. The projects has collected data that will enable the team to produce reconstructions of glacier size (length and area) for selected glaciers during the last ~13.000 years, yielding the range of glacier variability as a response to climate variability. The sediment analyses in Lake Chandra Tal have made it possible to distinguish between the sediments delivered by glacier erosion/transport and those caused by mass movement processes along the valley slopes. In order to date moraine sequences and landscape features, 21 samples for 10Be surface exposure dating have been submitted to a laboratory at Department of Earth Science, UiB, Norway, and the results are expected in spring 2017. University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), Boulder, USA, produced a high-resolution, downscaled dataset for current climate, and two climate-scenario downscaled datasets for the future (2006-2099). The downscaled dataset was used in the mass balance study to calibrate temperature and precipitation from various other datasets in order to compare with the observations. The main scientific results from the Climate Service Centre Germany (GERICS) in Hamburg were with respect to: (a) the model setup and evaluation, (b) the projected climate change over the greater Himalayan region, (c) the regional and local impact of the dynamical glacier scheme on the projected climate changes, and (d) simulated future regional glacier dynamics. The GLACINDIA project participants have produced 15 articles in peer-review journals, given 9 oral presentations, 4 poster presentations, and 2 popular science articles.

The GLACINDIA project, under the Agreement of Cooperation in Science & Technology between the governments of India and Norway, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Government of India and the Research Council of Norway (RCN), searches fun ding for joint and cooperative research on water related effects of changes in mass balance of glaciers/rivers. GLACINDIA will strengthen established and ongoing research activities between the partners and make significant scientific contributions and ad ded value to these activities. Effective and targeted dissemination of the results to governmental agencies, stakeholders and the general public is highly prioritized. The project includes: (a) arranging exchange visits (field trips and conferences/ works hops/meetings) of Indian and Norwegian scientists to the counterpart country, (b), funding of 2 post docs, and training of young scientists to promote knowledge transfer among project partners. This proposal draws its research activities on an existing p artnership between Norway and India (TERI-BCCR Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs capacity building project, the INDNOR travel-workshop funding and the NORINDIA project) with new collaborators: a) in Norway: UiB, UiO, b) in India: Jawaharlal Nehru Univ ersity; c) in Germany: German Climate Service Centre (CSC). This proposal brings in-kind funding resources from our own projects. GLACINDIA is a multi-disciplinary project and unique not only due to the participating institutions, but for the state-of-the -art science and knowledge transfer. We aim at reducing uncertainties in one region of Western Himalaya by a combination of field data of glacier mass balance and hydrology/river discharge in the past and present in combination with climate downscaling a nd modelling experiments at Chhota Shigri and Patsio glaciers. One of the main aim of GLACINDIA is to arrange exchange visits through field trips, conferences workshops, and meeting