Особенности формирования базы данных ледников плато Путорана и хребта Мунку-Сардык

Abstract

The state of mountain glaciers is closely related to the provision of water resources, tracking climate change, transforming the landscape, etc. Therefore, conducting regular inventories of glaciation areas is a fundamental task of geographical research. The results of the glacier inventory are recorded in special catalogs, currently in digital databases. Such a catalog existed for the glaciers of the USSR, which is presented and expanded in digital form as a database (DB) of glaciers in Russia. The current state of the world’s glaciers is reflected in the database through the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) service, which is supplemented by data from Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) and GAMDAM (Glacier Area Mapping for Discharge from the Asian Mountains). The database was created at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also included in the GLIMS database. However, these databases do not reflect the dynamics of glaciers with a certain periodicity. There are also features of mountain ranges that make it difficult to decrypt glaciers. Such an area includes the Putorana plateau. The trapway structure of the relief, which contributes to the formation of perennial snowflakes, and the presence of many rivers and lakes on which ice forms, requires additional information to compile a database of glaciers. The representation of the characteristics of glaciers for several main parameters (area, length, exposure, elevation of the bottom and top of the glacier, etc.) in a mountain range including 10–20 glaciers is not difficult. However, the glaciers of the Putorana plateau are distinguished by their abundance and peculiarity of configuration, determined by the features of the relief. Only according to the initial data (topographic maps), about two hundred nival-glacial objects were identified, recorded as glaciers. Therefore, it is advisable to consider this database as a database of nival-glacial formations, which are to be classified according to the type of object. Presenting the dynamics of glaciers in the database, under the condition of climate warming, leading mainly to the reduction and disappearance of glaciers, it is also necessary to take into account the disintegration of once large glaciers. The latter is characteristic of the glaciers of the Putorana plateau. The created database reflects the state of glaciers in 1960, 1979, 1987. In this paper, a comparison is made with the glaciers of the Munku-Sardyk ridge, as characteristic and most studied representatives of the glaciation of the southern part of Siberia. The features of the presentation of the characteristics of these glaciers in international databases are noted.