Some glaciers in Greenland are currently showing dramatic changes: A fast retreat of the glacier front, thinning and acceleration of glacier movement. As a prominent example, Jacobshavn Isbræ glacier has accelerated from 20 meters per day to 40 meters per day within a few years. These effects can very well be observed by photogrammetric and remote sensing techniques. In the paper, we report on ...

Glacier retreat is a worldwide phenomenon with important consequences for the hydrological cycle and downstream ecosystem structure and functioning. To determine the effects of glacier retreat on aquatic communities, we conducted a 4-year flow manipulation in a tropical glacier-fed stream. Compared with an adjacent reference stream, meltwater flow reduction induces significant changes in benthi...

Between 2003 and 2007, North Gasherbrum Glacier on the northeastern slope of the Karakoram mountains in Asia underwent a dramatic acceleration, during which a velocity wave propagated down the glacier. There was a significant transfer of ice from up-glacier downstream, which resulted in a strong surface elevation increase over the lower tongue, but only a moderate advance of the glacier snout. ...

Mass loss from mountain glaciers contributes to sea-level rise and reduces freshwater availability in glacier-fed river basins, with negative effects on hydropower generation, agriculture and the health of aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we determine the volume of lower Peyto Glacier, Alberta, Canada, from ground-penetrating radar surveys in 2008–10, and compare our volume estimate with prev...

The Tibetan Plateau is the world’s largest and highest plateau and holds the largest mass of ice on Earth outside the icesheets of Greenland and Antarctica, as well as abundant lakes. This study examined the molecular and isotopic signatures of dissolved organic matter (DOM) along with its biolability in glacier ice, glacier-fed streams, and alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau. The aim was to a...

Glaciers' runoff in the Qilian Mountains serves as a critical water resource in the northern sections of the Gansu province, the northeastern sections of the Qinghai province, and the northeastern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau. Changes in the glacial area and volume around the highest peak of the Qilian Mountains, i.e., Tuanjiefeng Peak, were estimated using multi-temporal remote-sensing images...

0167-8655/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. A http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.patrec.2012.07.003 ⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Biostatis Health, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (N.N. Kacho This paper addresses the quantification of glacier retreat through remote sensing. Specifically, we use multi-spectral Landsat satellite images for the estimation of glacier termi...

A glacierized terrain comprises different land covers, and their mapping using satellite data is challenged by their spectral similarity. We propose a hierarchical knowledge-based classification (HKBC) approach for differentiation of glacier terrain classes and mapping of glacier boundaries, using Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) imagery and Global Digital ...

Albedo is one of the variables controlling the mass balance of temperate glaciers. Multispectral imagers, such as MODerate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the TERRA and AQUA satellites, provide a means to monitor glacier surface albedo. In this study, different methods to retrieve broadband glacier surface albedo from MODIS data are compared. The effect of multiple reflections due to...

Scanned stereoscopic spying photography of a Hexagon KH-9 mission in 1973 as well as high resolution stereo imagery of ALOS-PRISM from 2009 was used to generate multi-temporal Digital Terrain Models for the estimation of glacier thickness changes of Kekesayi glacier situated at the Mustag Ata massif at the northwestern end of the Tibetan Plateau. Glacier surface velocities were estimated by amp...