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Supra-glacial debris cover changes in the Greater Caucasus from 1986 to 2014
- Source :
- The Cryosphere, Vol 14, Pp 585-598 (2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Knowledge of supra-glacial debris cover and its changes remain incomplete in the Greater Caucasus, in spite of recent glacier studies. Here we present data of supra-glacial debris cover for 659 glaciers across the Greater Caucasus based on Landsat and SPOT images from the years 1986, 2000 and 2014. We combined semi-automated methods for mapping the clean ice with manual digitization of debris-covered glacier parts and calculated supra-glacial debris-covered area as the residual between these two maps. The accuracy of the results was assessed by using high-resolution Google Earth imagery and GPS data for selected glaciers. From 1986 to 2014, the total glacier area decreased from 691.5±29.0 to 590.0±25.8 km2 (15.8±4.1 %, or ∼0.52 % yr−1), while the clean-ice area reduced from 643.2±25.9 to 511.0±20.9 km2 (20.1±4.0 %, or ∼0.73 % yr−1). In contrast supra-glacial debris cover increased from 7.0±6.4 %, or 48.3±3.1 km2, in 1986 to 13.4±6.2 % (∼0.22 % yr−1), or 79.0±4.9 km2, in 2014. Debris-free glaciers exhibited higher area and length reductions than debris-covered glaciers. The distribution of the supra-glacial debris cover differs between the northern and southern and between the western, central and eastern Greater Caucasus. The observed increase in supra-glacial debris cover is significantly stronger on the northern slopes. Overall, we have observed up-glacier average migration of supra-glacial debris cover from about 3015 to 3130 m a.s.l. (metres above sea level) during the investigated period.
- Subjects :
- 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
1904 Earth-Surface Processes
010502 geochemistry & geophysics
01 natural sciences
2312 Water Science and Technology
G1
Glacial period
910 Geography & travel
lcsh:Environmental sciences
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Earth-Surface Processes
Water Science and Technology
lcsh:GE1-350
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
lcsh:QE1-996.5
Metres above sea level
Earth
Glacier
G Geography (General)
DAS
Debris
lcsh:Geology
10122 Institute of Geography
Surface Processes
Gps data
Period (geology)
Cover (algebra)
Physical geography
Geology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19940424
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The Cryosphere, Vol 14, Pp 585-598 (2020)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....c82524e86ba7471c525d7280292dd4f4