Trends of snow cover in Western and West-Central Himalayas during 2004-2014

Abstract

The extent of snow cover on the earth is considered an important parameter for numerous climatological and hydrological applications. Snow cover dynamics in mountainous regions is a vital input for energy balance, glacier mass balance, climate change and snowmelt runoff modelling. There have been global efforts for monitoring of snow cover of earth at varying spatial and temporal scales by generation of snow products. Among these, one of the high temporal and spatial resolution datasets has been generated using advanced wide field sensor data for Western and West-Central Himalayan region at the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad. This is done using an algorithm developed based on normalized difference snow index. This paper discusses the trends of snow cover from 2004 to 2014 based on an input of approximately 12,600 snow cover products at sub-basin scale in Indus, Chenab, Satluj and Ganga basins. Analysis of snow cover shows high variability during accumulation than in ablation period. A subtle increase in snow cover was observed in all basins during 2004-2014.