Timing and climatic-driven mechanisms of glacier advances in Bhutanese Himalaya during the Little Ice Age

Abstract

Mountain glaciers provide us a window into past climate changes and landscape evolution, but the pattern of glacier evolution at centennial or suborbital timescale remains elusive, especially in monsoonal Himalayas. We simulated the glacier evolution in Bhutanese Himalaya (BH), a typical monsoon-influenced region, during the Little Ice Age (LIA) using the Open Global Glacier Model driven by six paleoclimate datasets and their average. Compared with geomorphologically mapped glacial landforms, the model can well capture the patterns of glacier length change. Simulation results revealed four glacial substages (the 1270s, 1470s, 1710s, and 1850s) during LIA in the study area. Statistically, a positive correlation between the number of glacial substages and glacier slope was found, indicating that the occurrence of glacial substages might be a result from heterogeneous responses of glaciers to climate change. Monthly climate change analysis and sensitivity experiments indicated that the summer temperature largely dominates the regional glacier evolution during the LIA in BH.