TY - JOUR
T1 - Area and mass changes of Siachen Glacier (East Karakoram)
AU - Agarwal, Vibhor
AU - Bolch, Tobias
AU - Syed, Tajdarul H.
AU - Pieczonka, Tino
AU - Strozzi, Tazio
AU - Nagaich, Rishabh
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the European Space Agency for providing the Envisat data under the AOE 668 project. T. Bolch and T. Strozzi acknowledge funding by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the Glaciers-cci project (code 4000109873/14/I-NB).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2016.
PY - 2017/2/1
Y1 - 2017/2/1
N2 - Here, we present a comprehensive assessment of Siachen Glacier (East Karakoram), in terms of its area and elevation change, velocity variations and mass budget, utilizing different satellite datasets including Landsat, Hexagon, Cartosat-I, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar and Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array-type L-band SAR. The total areal extent of Siachen Glacier did not change significantly between 1980 and 2014; however the exposed-ice area decreased during that period. The terminus of the glacier has experienced substantial downwasting (on average 30 m) over the period of 1999-2007, followed by a retreat of the transition between exposed and debris-covered ice by a distance of 1.3 km during the short span 2007-14. The spatial patterns of the elevation difference and velocity are heterogeneous over the large areal extent of Siachen Glacier. The average velocity of the entire glacier, as computed between 11 December 2008 and 26 January 2009, was 12.3 ± 0.4 cm d-1, while those estimated separately for the accumulation and ablation regions were 9.7 ± 0.4 cm d-1 and 20.4 ± 0.4 cm d-1, respectively. The mass budget of Siachen Glacier is estimated to be -0.03 ± 0.21 m w.e. a-1 for the period of 1999-2007.
AB - Here, we present a comprehensive assessment of Siachen Glacier (East Karakoram), in terms of its area and elevation change, velocity variations and mass budget, utilizing different satellite datasets including Landsat, Hexagon, Cartosat-I, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar and Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array-type L-band SAR. The total areal extent of Siachen Glacier did not change significantly between 1980 and 2014; however the exposed-ice area decreased during that period. The terminus of the glacier has experienced substantial downwasting (on average 30 m) over the period of 1999-2007, followed by a retreat of the transition between exposed and debris-covered ice by a distance of 1.3 km during the short span 2007-14. The spatial patterns of the elevation difference and velocity are heterogeneous over the large areal extent of Siachen Glacier. The average velocity of the entire glacier, as computed between 11 December 2008 and 26 January 2009, was 12.3 ± 0.4 cm d-1, while those estimated separately for the accumulation and ablation regions were 9.7 ± 0.4 cm d-1 and 20.4 ± 0.4 cm d-1, respectively. The mass budget of Siachen Glacier is estimated to be -0.03 ± 0.21 m w.e. a-1 for the period of 1999-2007.
KW - area changes
KW - glacier velocity
KW - mass budget
KW - remote sensing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85009971505&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/jog.2016.127
DO - 10.1017/jog.2016.127
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85009971505
SN - 0022-1430
VL - 63
SP - 148
EP - 163
JO - Journal of Glaciology
JF - Journal of Glaciology
IS - 237
ER -
