Climate Dynamics

0930-7575

SCIE

[논문]Spatio‑temporal snow cover change in the early twenty‑frst century using improved MODIS dataset: a case study of District Hunza, Pakistan

Muhammad Farhan Ul Moazzam, Byung Gul Lee

무하메드 파르한, 이병걸

Ghani Rahman, Kokab Saba Ali

Climate change has a massive infuence on cryosphere around the globe, particularly in the Hindukush, Karakoram, and
Himalayan (HKH) region which is jeopardizing water resources of the region. Thus, keeping this problem in mind the study
was conducted using improved MODIS snow cover product for District Hunza to extract snow cover area (SCA) from 2003
to 2018. ASTER GDEM data was utilized to correlate the topographic parameters (elevation, slope, and aspect) with SCA.
Mean monthly and annual rainfall and temperature data were acquired from climate research unit (CRU) to examine the
impact of climate change on SCA. The results indicated that District Hunza has a declining trend of SCA on a monthly and
annual time scale because mean monthly and annual temperature is increasing with a rate of 0.31 °C and 0.10 °C, respectively
while precipitation is decreasing with a rate of −2.90 mm/month and −5.73 mm/year. High seasonal variability has
been observed in SCA due to variations in temperature and precipitation. Maximum snow cover area is observed in elevation
zone 3–zone 5 in accumulation period while in depletion period maximum SCA is observed in zone 4 and zone 5. The
highest snow cover area was observed in slope zone 3 and zone 4 while Northeast and North facing slope aspect has also
maximum amount of snow. Monthly, annual, and seasonal SCA has been correlated with climatic parameters and strong
relationship has been observed between them. The conclusion can be drawn from this study that increasing temperature and
decreasing precipitation are contributing to SCA melting, which can cause food and water scarcity in downstream regions.

2022-10-04

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06498-5