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Abstract

Knowledge about glaciers and their past and future response to climate change in High Mountain Asia (HMA) is important because they provide reliable discharge to the mountain rivers and impact glacial hazards. Receding glaciers may endanger water supply and proglacial lakes to develop which are a threat to downstream areas. In this talk I will provide first an overview of the current knowledge about the heterogenous glacier changes since the 1960s and 1970s across HMA and their climatic and topographic drivers. Special emphasis will be hereby given on the influence of debris-cover, pro-glacial lakes and glacier surges on glacier mass balance and the Karakoram Anomaly.In the second part I will focus on future projections of glacier changes and its impact on runoff and glacial hazards. This part will include also societal aspects of the anticipated changes. Finally, I will hypothesise to which extend hidden ice sources stored in ice-rich permafrost and rock glaciers could counterbalance the expected runoff decrease in most regions.