Glacier Changes in the West Kunlun Mountains Revealed by Landsat Data from 1994 to 2016

3rd International Symposium on Earth Observation for Arid and Semi-Arid Environments

Zhang, J.^1 ; Fu, B.H.^1 ; Wang, L.M.^1 ; Maimaiti, A.^1 ; Ma, Y.X.^1 ; Yan, F.^1

Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Kashgar Research Centre, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing

100094, China^1

关键词: Classification results;    Glacier change;    LANDSAT;    LANDSAT TM;    Recession rate;    Snowline;    Study areas;    West kunlun;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/74/1/012002/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/74/1/012002

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

The dynamics of glacier area in the West Kunlun Mountains has been measured using Landsat TM, ETM+, and OLI data form 1994 to 2016. The study mainly focuses on the northern slope of West Kunlun Mountains, a region that is affected by the Westerlies. From 1994 to 2016, glacier area slightly increased then decreased dramatically in the whole period. The most significant glacier shrinkage occurred in 2005. Before 2005, the glacier was growing, with the area increased from 1687.44 km2in 1994 to 1846.67 km2in 2005. After 2005, the glacier retreated rapidly, with a recession rate of 21.31 km2a-1during 2005-2008. From 2008 to 2016, the glacier continued to shrink with a recession rate of 11.00 km2a-1, and the glacier area finally declined to 1694.57 km2in 2016. Finally, combining the classification result with DEM, we estimated that the average transient snowline altitude was 6000 m in the study area.