Journal of Glaciology (2019), 65(250) 270–278 doi: 10.1017/jog.2019.5 © The Author(s) 2019. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. No significant mass loss in the glaciers of Astore Basin (North-Western Himalaya), between 1999 and 2016 Sher MUHAMMAD,1,2,3,4 Lide TIAN,1,2,3,5 Marcus NÜSSER6 1Institute of International Rivers and Eco-security, Yunnan University, 650500 Kunming, China 2Yunnan Key Laboratory of International Rivers and Transboundary Eco–security, Kunming 650091, China 3Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environmental Change and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China 4International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu, Nepal 5CAS Center of Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing 100101, China 6Department of Geography, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany Correspondence: Sher Muhammad <
[email protected]> ABSTRACT. Although glaciers in High Mountain Asia produce an enormous amount of water used by downstream populations, they remain poorly observed in the field. This study presents a geodetic mass balance of the glaciers in the Astore Basin (with differential GPS (dGPS) measurements on Harcho glacier) between 1999 and 2016. Changes near the terminus of Harcho glacier (below 3800 m a.s.l.) featured heterogeneous surface elevation changes, whereas the middle section shows the most negative changes. The surface elevation changes were positive above 4200 m a.s.l.