Spatial, seasonal and interannual variability of supraglacial ponds in the Langtang Valley of Nepal, 1999–2013 MILES, EVAN S. WILLIS, IAN C. ARNOLD, NEIL S. STEINER, JAKOB Pellicciotti, Francesca Earth-Surface Processes Supraglacial ponds play a key role in absorbing atmospheric energy and directing it to the ice of debris-covered glaciers, but the spatial and temporal distribution of these features is not well documented. We analyse 172 Landsat TM/ETM+ scenes for the period 1999–2013 to identify thawed supraglacial ponds for the debris-covered tongues of five glaciers in the Langtang Valley of Nepal. We apply an advanced atmospheric correction routine (Landcor/6S) and use band ratio and image morphological techniques to identify ponds and validate our results with 2.5 m Cartosat-1 observations. We then characterize the spatial, seasonal and interannual patterns of ponds. We find high variability in pond incidence between glaciers (May–October means of 0.08–1.69% of debris area), with ponds most frequent in zones of low surface gradient and velocity. The ponds show pronounced seasonality, appearing in the pre-monsoon as snow melts, peaking at the monsoon onset at 2% of debris-covered area, then declining in the post-monsoon as ponds drain or freeze. Ponds are highly recurrent and persistent, with 40.5% of pond locations occurring for multiple years. Rather than a trend in pond cover over the study period, we find high interannual variability for each glacier after controlling for seasonality. Cambridge University Press 2017 info:eu-repo/semantics/article doc-type:article text http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/record/12612 MILES ES, WILLIS IC, ARNOLD NS, STEINER J, Pellicciotti F. Spatial, seasonal and interannual variability of supraglacial ponds in the Langtang Valley of Nepal, 1999–2013. <i>Journal of Glaciology</i>. 2017;63(237):88-105. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.120">10.1017/jog.2016.120</a> eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1017/jog.2016.120 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/0022-1430 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/e-issn/1727-5652 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess