Area and Mass Changes of Glaciers in the West Kunlun Mountains Based on the Analysis of Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing Images and DEMs from 1970 to 2018

Baotian Pan,Bo Cao,Hui Han,Kaiji Li,Zhenling Wen,Weijin Guan

doi:10.3390/rs12162632

Abstract

Most of the world’s glaciers have retreated significantly against the background of recent climate warming, while reports have indicated that the glaciers in the West Kunlun Mountains (WKL) may be in a relatively stable state, although there are some gaps in previous research. Based on Landsat series data, topographic maps, SRTM and TanDEM-x data, this paper extracts detailed glacial area information and glacial mass balance during different time periods from 1970 to 2018. We found that, the total area of glaciers in the WKL decreased by 8.0 km2 from 1972 to 2018. The area decreased by 12.0 km2 from 1972 to 1991 and increased by 4.7 km2 from 2010 to 2018. Glacier surface elevation change results in the WKL showed that the overall glacier thickness slightly decreased from 1970 to 2016, with an average of 1.9 ± 1.0 m. The glaciers thinned by approximately 2.5 ± 1.0 m from 1970 to 2000, while from 2000 to 2016, the glaciers thickened approximately by 0.6 ± 1.0 m. Overall, the glaciers in the WKL showed very slight retreat. In addition, the mass changes of glaciers were affected by glacial surging.

Highlights

Most of the glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have retreated significantly against the background of recent climate warming [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Wang et al [9] showed that the mass balance was −0.06 ± 0.13 m w.e. a−1 from the 1970s–1999 in the West Kunlun Mountains (WKL) through topographic maps and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data
For the same time period, Zhou et al [10] used the results of glacier surface elevation obtained by the KeyHole-9 photographic satellite mission (KH-9)and SRTM to show that some glaciers in the region had a mass

Summary

Introduction

Most of the glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have retreated significantly against the background of recent climate warming [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Karakoram glaciers have remained stable or advanced during the same period [5,7]. This pattern is known as the “Karakoram Anomaly” [7]. This phenomenon of heterogeneous glacier variations in TP regions is mainly attributable to different spatial patterns of climate change [5]. The results of studies on the glacier mass balance in this region differ. For the same time period, Zhou et al [10] used the results of glacier surface elevation obtained by the KeyHole-9 photographic satellite mission (KH-9)and SRTM to show that some glaciers in the region had a mass

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