Complete Swiss glacier inventories are available for 1850 (reconstructed) and 1973 (from aerial photography). Connected to the GLIMS project a new Swiss glacier inventory for approximately the year 2000 (SGI 2000) is compiled mainly based on satellite imagery. The developed and applied remote sensing and GIS methods are described in part I of the contribution. In part II, the inventory design, ...

Analyses of multispectral satellite data indicate accelerated glacier decline around the globe since the 1980s. By using digitized glacier outlines inferred from the 1973 inventory and Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite data from 1985 to 1999, we obtained area changes of about 930 Alpine glaciers. The 18% area reduction as observed for the period 1985 to 1999 (−1.3% a�1) corresponds to a se...

In the course of glacier retreat, new glacier lakes can develop. As such lakes can be a source of natural hazards, strategies for predicting future glacier lake formation are important for an early planning of safety measures. In this article, a multi-level strategy for the identification of overdeepened parts of the glacier beds and, hence, sites with potential future lake formation, is presen...

Glacier surfaces are not only composed of ice or snow but are heterogeneousmixtures of different materials. The occurrence and dynamics of light-absorbing impurities affect ice surface characteristics and strongly influence glacier melt processes. However, our understanding of the spatial distribution of impurities and their impact on ice surface characteristics and the glacier's energy budget ...

The glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Peru, are rapidly retreating and thinning as a result of climate change, altering the timing, quantity and quality of water available to downstream users. Furthermore, increases in the number and size of proglacial lakes associated with these melting glaciers is increasing potential exposure to glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Understanding how these ...

Glacier-fed rivers are among the most sensitive and endangered habitat types nowadays. Their upper reaches are located within areas of economic interest (e.g. skiing and glacier skiing, hydropower generation), but also within protected areas such as, for example, National Parks worldwide (e.g. Hohe Tauern, Pyrenees, Rocky Mountains). The majority of glacial river studies has focused on the macr...

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...