Abstract
Abstract. The investigation of surging glaciers using remote sensing has recently seen a strong increase as freely available satellite data and digital elevation models (DEMs) can provide detailed information about surges that often take place in remote and inaccessible regions. Apart from analysing individual surges, satellite information is increasingly used to collect valuable data on surging glaciers. Related inventories have recently been published for several regions in High Mountain Asia including the Karakoram or parts of the Pamir and western Kunlun Shan, but information for the entire Pamir is solely available from a historic database listing about 80 glaciers with confirmed surges. Here we present an updated inventory of confirmed glacier surges for the Pamir that considers results from earlier studies and is largely based on a systematic analysis of Landsat image time series (1988 to 2018), very high-resolution imagery (Corona, Hexagon, Bing Maps, Google Earth) and DEM differences. Actively surging glaciers (e.g. with advancing termini) were identified from animations and flicker images and the typical elevation change patterns (lowering in an upper reservoir zone and thickening further down in a receiving zone). In total, we identified 206 spatially distinct surges within 186 glacier bodies mostly clustered in the northern and western part of the Pamir. Where possible, minimum and maximum glacier extents were digitised, but often interacting tributaries made a clear separation challenging. Most surging glaciers (n=70) are found in the larger size classes (>10 km2), but two of them are very small (<0.5 km2). We also found several surges where the length of the glacier increased by more than 100 %. The created datasets are available at: https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.914150 (Goerlich et al., 2020).
Highlights
The 186 surging glaciers cover a total area of ∼ 2670 km2
Eight of them (∼ 5 %) are smaller than 1 km2 covering an area of ∼ 7 km2, whereas 38 % are larger than 10 km2 covering an area of 2170 km2 (Table 3)
We presented a new inventory of surging glaciers for the Pamir Mountains
Summary
The investigation of surging glaciers using satellite data has recently received increased attention among scientists, in particular for the Karakoram mountain range and other regions of the world (e.g. Berthier and Brun, 2019; Bhambri et al, 2017; Bolch et al, 2017; Falaschi et al, 2018; Minora et al, 2016; Paul, 2015, 2020; Quincey et al, 2015; Rankl and Braun, 2016; Round et al, 2017; Steiner et al, 2018). Berthier and Brun, 2019; Bhambri et al, 2017; Bolch et al, 2017; Falaschi et al, 2018; Minora et al, 2016; Paul, 2015, 2020; Quincey et al, 2015; Rankl and Braun, 2016; Round et al, 2017; Steiner et al, 2018) This has several reasons, for example (a) the free access to long (Landsat) and dense (TerraSAR-X/TanDEMX, Sentinel-1/2) time series of high-resolution satellite data, (b) the limited understanding of why some glaciers in this region are surging while others are not, (c) a large number of ongoing surges at any point in time, (d) the large variations in surge behaviour in a small region, (e) the long history of still occurring surge-related hazards (mostly due to damming of a river and related outburst of lakes), and (f) the very difficult field access. Goerlich et al.: More dynamic than expected: an updated survey of surging glaciers in the Pamir
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