Increased Mass Loss of Glaciers in the Sawir Mountains of Central Asia between 1959 and 2021

• Published in: Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 14; no. 21; p. 5406
• Main Authors: Bai, Changbin, Wang, Feiteng, Bi, Yanqun, Wang, Lin, Xu, Chunhai, Yue, Xiaoying, Yang, Shujing, Wang, Puyu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-11-2022
• Subjects: Air temperature; Altitude; Digital Elevation Models; Digital mapping; Elevation; Environmental policy; Freshwater resources; geodetic method; glacier change; Glacier mass balance; Glaciers; glaciological method; Mass balance; Mountains; Precipitation; Radar; regional warming impact; Registration; Remote sensing; Satellites; Sawir Mountains; Software; Synthetic aperture radar; Topographic mapping; Topographic maps; Topography; Kazakhstan; Central Asia; United States > US; China; Japan
• ISSN: 2072-4292; 2072-4292
• DOI: 10.3390/rs14215406

Glacier mass balance can be regarded as a major direct index of climate variations. In this paper, a geodetic method was used to evaluate the mass balance of Sawir glaciers based on topographic map DEM (Digital Elevation Model), SRTM 30 m DEM, ASTER 30 m DEM, and Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar 10 m DEM between 1959–2021, in order to explore the response to climatic alterations. In the case of Muz Taw glacier, the first comprehensive dataset concerning mass-balance readings for the 2014–2021 period was provided based on the eight-year consecutive field measurements. The glaciological average mass balance reached –883.4 ± 130 mm a–1 during this period. The geodetic mass balance for all glaciers of the Sawir Mountain range was −0.43 ± 0.12 m w. e. a−1 between 1959 and 2000, and accelerated to −0.56 ± 0.13 m w. e. a−1 between 2000 and 2021. A comparison of field measurements and remote-sensing approaches for determining the Muz Taw glacier’s mass balance between 2014–2021 proves the feasibility of the remote-sensing approach, which involves mass-balance monitoring based on DEMdata. In addition, our findings support the contention that air temperature is the dominant factor for accelerated glacier mass loss and surface elevation change.