The Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) is currently stable but recent observations have indicated that basal melt rates beneath the ice shelf are expected to increase. It is important to know which areas of the RIS are more sensitive to enhanced basal melting as well as other external forcings or internal material properties of the ice to understand how climate change will influence RIS mass balance. In this paper, we use automatic differentiation and the Ice Sheet and Sea-level System Model to quantify the sensitivity of the RIS to changes in basal friction, ice rigidity, surface mass balance, and basal melting. Using volume above flotation (VAF) as our quantity of interest, we find that the RIS is most sensitive to changes in basal friction and ice rigidity close to grounding lines and along shear margins of the Siple Coast Ice Streams and Transantarctic Mountains Outlet Glaciers. The RIS sensitivity to surface mass balance is uniform over grounded ice, while the sensitivity to basal melting is more spatially variable. Changes in basal melting close to the grounding lines of the Siple Coast Ice Streams and Transantarctic Mountains outlet glaciers have a larger impact on the final VAF compared to elsewhere. Additionally, the pinning points and ice shelf shear margins are highly sensitive to changes in basal melt. Our sensitivity maps allow areas of greatest future vulnerability to be identified.

Glaciers in High‐mountain Asia play a critical role in both climate change studies and regional water resource management. However, detailed observations over a large spatial extent remain scarce. In this study, we reconstruct annual glacier‐wide mass balance from 2000 to 2020 for glaciers larger than 0.1 km² across the Tien Shan and Pamir using machine learning (ML) techniques. Five ensemble ML and a deep neural network models were tested, with XGBoost demonstrating the best performance and thus selected for the reconstruction of the glacier mass balance time series. Predictor variables included meteorological data from the ERA5‐Land data set and topographic features. The results indicate an average mass loss of −0.39 m water equivalent (m w.e.) per year for the studied period, with the highest losses observed in the Djungar Alatau (−0.68 m w.e. yr⁻¹), and the lowest in the eastern Pamir (−0.10 m w.e. yr⁻¹). Additionally, the results reveal that small glaciers (area <1 km²) experience more rapid mass loss. The temporal evolution of glacier mass balance exhibits, on average, an acceleration but with spatiotemporal variability. Variable importance analysis identified glacier elevation and geographic location as the dominant factors influencing mass balance, followed by the temperatures of July and August. This work further advances the application of ML methods in glaciology, enhancing our understanding of regional glacier mass balance.

The Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) is currently stable but recent observations have indicated that basal melt rates beneath the ice shelf are expected to increase. It is important to know which areas of the RIS are more sensitive to enhanced basal melting as well as other external forcings or internal material properties to understand how climate change will influence RIS mass balance. In this paper, we use Automatic Differentiation and the Ice Sheet and Sea-level System Model to quantify the sensitivity of the RIS to changes in basal friction, ice rigidity, surface mass balance, and basal melting. Using Volume Above Flotation (VAF) as our quantity of interest, we find that the RIS is most sensitive to changes in basal friction and ice rigidity close to grounding lines and along shear margins of the Siple Coast Ice Streams and Transantarctic Mountains Outlet Glaciers. RIS sensitivity to surface mass balance is uniform over grounded ice, while the sensitivity to basal melting is more spatially variable. With changes in basal melting close to the grounding zones of the Siple Coast Ice Streams and Transantarctic Mountains Outlet Glaciers as well as the pinning points of the RIS including Ross Island, Roosevelt Island, Crary Ice Rise, Steershead Ice Rise and the Shirase Coast Ice Rumples and the ice shelf shear margins having a larger impact on the RIS VAF. Our sensitivity maps allow areas of greatest future vulnerability to be identified.