Glacier lakes are a common phenomenon in high mountain areas. Outbursts from glacier lakes have repeatedly caused the loss of human lives as well as severe damage to local infrastructure. In several high mountain ranges around the world, a grave uncertainty about the hazard potential of glacier lakes still exists, especially with respect to the effects of accelerating rates of glacier retreat a...

The Global Land Ice Measurement from Space (GLIMS) project is a cooperative effort of over sixty institutions world-wide with the goal of inventorying a majority of the world's estimated 160000 glaciers. Each institution (called a Regional Center, or RC) oversees the analysis of satellite imagery for a particular region containing glacier ice. Data received by the GLIMS team at the National Sno...

The widely distributed glaciers over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) represent important freshwater reserves and the meltwater feeds many major rivers of Asia. Glacier change over the QTP has shown high temporal and spatial variability in recent decades, and the driving forces of the variability are not yet clear. This study examines the area and thickness change of glaciers in the Dongkemadi (...

Due to their sensitive reaction to changes in climatic conditions, glaciers have been selected as an essential climate variable (ECV). Although a large amount of ice is located in the Himalayas, this region is yet only sparsely represented in global glacier databases. Accordingly, a sound and comprehensive change assessment or determination of water resources was not yet possible. In this study...

Glacier melting and altered precipitation patterns influence Arctic freshwater and coastal ecosystems. Arctic rivers are central to Arctic water ecosystems by linking glacier meltwaters and precipitation with the ocean through transport of particulate matter and microorganisms. However, the impact of different water sources on the microbial communities in Arctic rivers and estuaries remains unk...

Runoff in glacierized alpine basins results from the seasonal snow cover and from the glacier melt. Due to high resolution satellite sensors, it is possible to map snow cover and glacier areas in the basin of Massa-Blatten, 196 km2, 1447 4191 m a.s.l. Depletion curves of snow covered areas were derived in six elevation zones. In addition, the date was determined when the glacierice became expos...

Satellite remote sensing is a convenient tool for studying snow and glacier ice, allowing us to conduct research over large and otherwise inaccessible areas. This paper reviews various methods for measuring snow and glacier ice properties with satellite remote sensing. These methods have been improving with the use of new satellite sensors, like the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) during the las...

We mapped six distinct glacial moraines alongside Stocking Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Stocking Glacier is one of several alpine glaciers in the Dry Valleys fringed by multiple cold-based drop moraines. To determine the age of the outermost moraine, we collected 10 boulders of Ferrar Dolerite along the crest of the moraine and analyzed mineral separates of pyroxene for cosmo...

Holocene lateral moraines in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia are commonly composed of multiple drift units related to several glacier advances. In this paper, we document lateral moraine stratigraphy at Lillooet Glacier in the southern Coast Mountains. Five tills, separated by laterally extensive paleosols and layers of large woody debris, were found in three cross-sectional exposures t...

As a typical landform class of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, glacier is widely distributed in alpine terrain. However, field measurement is impossible in those areas because of complex terrain and adverse weather. At first, on the basis of analyzing the features of glacier image spectrum, object shape, spatial relations and environment distribution including terrain and climate, this paper combines ...