Glaciology and Cryosphere
Watching the water towers of Asia
Himalayan glaciers feed the rivers that hundreds of millions of people depend on, and they are changing fast. HICS's cryosphere work focuses on what can be measured locally and openly: how much ice there is, how black carbon deposition darkens and melts it, and how the risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) evolves — a danger made vivid by the 2024 Thame valley GLOF.
Including muons through ice
One of the most striking tools is muography: because cosmic ray muons are absorbed in proportion to the mass they pass through, measuring how the muon flux is attenuated along a line of sight reveals the density and thickness of the ice and bedrock above — an ice-bedrock scan with no drilling.
Muography (ice-bedrock imaging) ▸
Directional muon flux attenuation gives metre-scale images of the ice-bedrock interface — see the Muon Physics programme.
Black-carbon deposition ▸
Soot deposited on snow darkens it and accelerates melt; this links directly to the Atmospheric Science aerosol work.
Mass balance & GLOF risk ▸
Field monitoring of glacier change feeding open assessments of downstream flood risk.
Planned. The methods build directly on HICS's muon and atmospheric programmes; field work follows instrument readiness.