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Glacier elevation and mass changes over the central Karakoram region estimated from TanDEM-X and SRTM/X-SAR digital elevation models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2016

Melanie Rankl  and
Matthias Braun
Melanie Rankl*
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
Matthias Braun
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
*
Correspondence: Melanie Rankl <[email protected]>
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Abstract

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Snow cover and glaciers in the Karakoram region are important freshwater resources for many down-river communities as they provide water for irrigation and hydropower. A better understanding of current glacier changes is hence an important informational baseline. We present glacier elevation changes in the central Karakoram region using TanDEM-X and SRTM/X-SAR DEM differences between 2000 and 2012. We calculated elevation differences for glaciers with advancing and stable termini or surge-type glaciers separately using an inventory from a previous study. Glaciers with stable and advancing termini since the 1970s showed nearly balanced elevation changes of -0.09 ±0.12 m a-1 on average or mass budgets of -0.01 ±0.02Gt a-1 (using a density of 850 kg m-3). Our findings are in accordance with previous studies indicating stable or only slightly negative glacier mass balances during recent years in the Karakoram. The high-resolution elevation changes revealed distinct patterns of mass relocation at glacier surfaces during active surge cycles. The formation of kinematic waves at quiescent surge-type glaciers could be observed and points towards future active surge behaviour. Our study reveals the potential of the TanDEM-X mission to estimate geodetic glacier mass balances, but also points to still existing uncertainties induced by the geodetic method.

Keywords

glacier mass balanceglacier surgesmountain glaciersremote sensing
Type
Paper
Information
Annals of Glaciology , Volume 57 , Issue 71 , March 2016 , pp. 273 - 281
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
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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