Glacier mass loss during the 1960s and 1970s in the Ak-Shirak range (Kyrgyzstan) from multiple stereoscopic Corona and Hexagon imagery
Abstract
Comprehensive research on glacier changes in the Tian Shan is available for the current decade; however, there is limited information about glacier investigations of previous decades and especially before the mid 1970s. The earliest stereo images from the Corona missions were acquired in the 1960s but existing studies dealing with these images focus on single glaciers or small areas only. We developed a workflow to generate digital terrain models (DTMs) and orthophotos from 1964 Corona KH-4 for an entire mountain range (Ak-Shirak) located in the Central Tian Shan. From these DTMs and orthoimages, we calculated geodetic mass balances and length changes in comparison to 1973 and 1980 Hexagon KH-9 data. We found mass budgets between -0.4 ± 0.1 m·w.e.a -1 (1964-1980) and -0.9 ± 0.4 m·w.e.a -1 (1973-1980) for the whole region and individual glaciers. The length changes, on the other hand, vary heterogeneously between +624 ± 18 m (+39.0 ± 1.1 m.a -1 ) and -923 ± 18 m (-57.7 ± 1.1 m·a -1 ) for 1964-1980. An automation of the processing line can successively lead to region-wide Corona data processing allowing the analysis and interpretation of glacier changes on a larger scale and supporting a refinement of glacier modelling.
Citation
Goerlich , F , Bolch , T , Mukherjee , K & Pieczonka , T 2017 , ' Glacier mass loss during the 1960s and 1970s in the Ak-Shirak range (Kyrgyzstan) from multiple stereoscopic Corona and Hexagon imagery ' , Remote Sensing , vol. 9 , no. 3 , 275 . https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9030275
Publication
Remote Sensing
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2072-4292Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Description
This study was conducted within the framework of the project “Spaceborne glacier monitoring of the Aksu-Tarim catchment (Xinjiang/China, Kyrgyzstan)” funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Code BO 3199/2-1) and the Glaciers_cci project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA through grant4000109873/14/I-NB).Collections
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