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Changes in glaciation of the Balkhash–Alakol basin, central Asia, over recent decades

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2016

I. Severskiy
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Almaty, Kazakhstan
E. Vilesov
Affiliation:
Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
R. Armstrong
Affiliation:
National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
A. Kokarev
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Almaty, Kazakhstan
L. Kogutenko
Affiliation:
Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
Z. Usmanova
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Almaty, Kazakhstan Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
V. Morozova
Affiliation:
Kazakhstan Agency of Applied Ecology, Almaty, Kazakhstan
B. Raup
Affiliation:
National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
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Abstract

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We describe changes in glaciers of the Balkhash-Alakol basin, central Asia, and analyse unified glacier inventories of the Zailiyskiy-Kungei and Jungar glacier systems and the Chinese part of the Ili river basin, as well as mass-balance monitoring data from Tsentralniy Tuyuksu glacier for the period 1957-2014. In spite of significant inter-basin differences, glaciation of the three glacial systems in the Ili river basin within Kazakhstan as well as within Chinese territory is changing simultaneously and similarly. Differences in the rates of glacier degradation are small and are affected primarily by the orientation of the flanks of the mountain ridges. Since the mid-1950s, glaciation of the region has remained degraded and, on average over the period examined, glaciers shrank at a rate of about 0.8% a-1 in area and about 1 % a-1 in ice volume. Glacial systems in large basins such as Balkhash-Alakol change simultaneously, linearly and at similar rates. The average rates of glacier reduction of the Zailiyskiy-Kungei, Jungar and upper Ili glacier systems for the period 1955/56-2008 amounted to 0.76%, 0.75% and 0.73% a-1 respectively.

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Paper
Creative Commons
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016

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