Understanding the climate-glacier dynamics of debris-covered glaciers is notoriously difficult given a multitude of controlling factors and feedback mechanisms involving climate forcing, debris-load properties, supraglacial water bodies, and multi-scale topographic effects. Recent studies have provided insights into controlling factors, and have reported the presence of anomalies that generally contradict the general consensus of the protective influence of debris loads on ablation dynamics. Nevertheless, numerous processes that regulate glacier dynamics at various spatial and temporal scales have not been adequately accounted for in statistical and numerical modeling studies. Furthermore, important feedbacks involving ablation, topography, irradiance, gravitational debris flux and supraglacial ponding are often neglected or oversimplified in existing models, which pose challenges to our understanding of conflicting field observations such as the accelerated downwasting on many Himalayan glaciers, and glacier-subsystem responses (ice-flow, debris flux, surface morphology and supraglacial water bodies) to climate forcing. This paper provides insights into the complexity of debris-covered glacier systems by addressing concepts and issues associated with forcing factors and glacial processes, and highlights the importance of understanding system couplings and feedbacks. Specifically, we review recent studies on debris-covered glaciers and utilize simulation results based on the Baltoro Glacier in the central Karakoram to discuss important concepts and issues. Our results demonstrate that climate forcing, the properties and transport of debris, topography and supraglacial water bodies are the key controlling factors in a debris-covered glacier system, and that their coupled effects and positive feedbacks may increase the ice loss of a debris-covered glacier. We also recommend new research directions for future studies.

中文翻译：

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了解复杂的碎屑覆盖的冰川：概念，问题和研究方向

考虑到涉及气候强迫，碎屑载荷特性，冰川超生水体和多尺度地形效应的众多控制因素和反馈机制，了解碎屑覆盖的冰川的气候-冰川动力学是非常困难的。最近的研究提供了对控制因素的见解，并报告了异常的存在，这些异常通常与碎片负荷对消融动力学的保护性影响的普遍共识相矛盾。然而，在统计和数值模型研究中，许多在各种时空尺度上调节冰川动力学的过程都没有得到足够的考虑。此外，重要的反馈信息包括烧蚀，地形，辐照度，在现有模型中，重力碎屑通量和冰期积聚常常被忽略或简化，这给我们对冲突的现场观测的理解提出了挑战，例如对许多喜马拉雅冰川的加速消融以及冰川子系统的响应（冰流，碎屑通量，表面形态）和冰川边缘水体）对气候的强迫作用。本文通过解决与强迫因素和冰川过程有关的概念和问题，提供了对残骸覆盖的冰川系统复杂性的见解，并强调了理解系统耦合和反馈的重要性。具体来说，我们回顾了有关碎屑覆盖冰川的最新研究，并利用基于喀喇昆仑山脉中部Baltoro冰川的模拟结果来讨论重要的概念和问题。我们的结果表明，气候强迫，碎片的性质和运输，地形和冰川上水体是覆盖冰川的冰川系统的关键控制因素，它们的耦合作用和正反馈可能会增加覆盖冰川的冰的损失。冰川。我们还建议新的研究方向，以供将来研究之用。