A data set of worldwide glacier length fluctuations

Leclercq, P. W.; Oerlemans, J.; Basagic, Hassan J.; Bushueva, Irina; Cook, Alison; Bris, R. Le

doi:10.5194/tc-8-659-2014

Cited by 82 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Some define it as the central flow line from the highest glacier elevation to the terminus, whereas to others it is the longest flow line Leclercq et al, 2014). Length change can either be calculated by intersecting the central flow line with the respective glacier outline (Paul and Svoboda, 2009) or by determining the average length of the intersection of the glacier outline with stripes drawn parallel to the main flow direction (Koblet et al, 2010).…”

Section: Glacier Lengthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent glacier mass balance and area changes in the Kangri Karpo Mountains from DEMs and glacier inventories

Liu

Jiang

et al. 2018

The Cryosphere

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Abstract. Due to the influence of the Indian monsoon, the Kangri Karpo Mountains in the south-east of the Tibetan Plateau is in the most humid and one of the most important and concentrated regions containing maritime (temperate) glaciers. Glacier mass loss in the Kangri Karpo is an important contributor to global mean sea level rise, and changes run-off distribution, increasing the risk of glaciallake outburst floods (GLOFs). Because of its inaccessibility and high labour costs, information about the Kangri Karpo glaciers is still limited. Using geodetic methods based on digital elevation models (DEMs) derived from 1980 topographic maps from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) (2000) and from TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X (2014), this study has determined glacier elevation changes. Glacier area and length changes between 1980 and 2015 were derived from topographical maps and Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI images. Results show that the Kangri Karpo contained 1166 glaciers with an area of 2048.50 ± 48.65 km 2 in 2015. Ice cover diminished by 679.51 ± 59.49 km 2 (24.9 ± 2.2 %) or 0.71 ± 0.06 % a −1 from 1980 to 2015, although nine glaciers advanced. A glacierized area of 788.28 km 2 , derived from DEM differencing, experienced a mean mass loss of 0.46 ± 0.08 m w.e.

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Section: Glacier Lengthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent glacier mass balance and area changes in the Kangri Karpo Mountains from DEMs and glacier inventories

Liu

Jiang

et al. 2018

The Cryosphere

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“…The number and duration of glacier length observations are much greater (Oerlemans, 2005;Leclercq et al, 2014;Zemp et al, 2015;Solomina et al, 2016). The most accurate estimates are deduced from direct observations of the glacier terminus position as recorded for instance by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in the Fluctuations of Glaciers (WGMS, 2017).…”

Section: Glacier Length Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the comparison of model results with observational estimates is a key element of our methodology, we have applied OGGM to 71 glaciers from the European Alps that have records covering at least the 20th century in the global compilation of Leclercq et al (2014). Twelve of these glacier length series go back to 1800 CE, seven go back to 1700 CE, and the longest record starts in 1535 CE (Unterer Grindelwald), allowing for each of them a quantitative comparison with model results at multi-decadal to centennial timescales.…”

Section: Glacier Length Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the consistency between changes in simulated climate and Alpine glacier length over the past millennium

et al. 2018

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Abstract.It is standard to compare climate model results covering the past millennium and reconstructions based on various archives in order to test the ability of models to reproduce the observed climate variability. Up to now, glacier length fluctuations have not been used systematically in this framework even though they offer information on multidecadal to centennial variations complementary to other records. One reason is that glacier length depends on several complex factors and so cannot be directly linked to the simulated climate. However, climate model skill can be measured by comparing the glacier length computed by a glacier model driven by simulated temperature and precipitation to observed glacier length variations. This is done here using the version 1.0 of the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM) forced by fields derived from a range of simulations performed with global climate models over the past millennium. The glacier model is applied to a set of Alpine glaciers for which observations cover at least the 20th century. The observed glacier length fluctuations are generally well within the range of the simulations driven by the various climate model results, showing a general consistency with this ensemble of simulations. Sensitivity experiments indicate that the results are much more sensitive to the simulated climate than to OGGM parameters. This confirms that the simulations of glacier length can be used to evaluate the climate model performance, in particular the simulated summer temperatures that largely control the glacier changes in our region of interest. Simulated glacier length is strongly influenced by the internal variability in the system, putting limitations on the model-data comparison for some variables like the trends over the 20th century in the Alps. Nevertheless, comparison of glacier length fluctuations on longer timescales, for instance between the 18th century and the late 20th century, appear less influenced by the natural variability and indicate clear differences in the behaviour of the various climate models.

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“…In a scientific context, glacier length change records are interpreted with respect to variations in climate (e.g., Hoelzle et al, 2003;Oerlemans, 2005). Despite being scientifically relevant and easy to communicate, glacier length is difficult to define and has been measured only for a relatively small number of glaciers worldwide (Cogley, 2009;Paul et al, 2009;Leclercq et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The length of the world's glaciers – a new approach for the global calculation of center lines

Machguth

Huss

2014

The Cryosphere

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Abstract. Glacier length is an important measure of glacier geometry. Nevertheless, global glacier inventories are mostly lacking length data. Only recently semi-automated approaches to measure glacier length have been developed and applied regionally. Here we present a first global assessment of glacier length using an automated method that relies on glacier surface slope, distance to the glacier margins and a set of trade-off functions. The method is developed for East Greenland, evaluated for East Greenland as well as for Alaska and eventually applied to all ∼ 200 000 glaciers around the globe. The evaluation highlights accurately calculated glacier length where digital elevation model (DEM) quality is high (East Greenland) and limited accuracy on lowquality DEMs (parts of Alaska). Measured length of very small glaciers is subject to a certain level of ambiguity. The global calculation shows that only about 1.5 % of all glaciers are longer than 10 km, with Bering Glacier (Alaska/Canada) being the longest glacier in the world at a length of 196 km. Based on the output of our algorithm we derive global and regional area-length scaling laws. Differences among regional scaling parameters appear to be related to characteristics of topography and glacier mass balance. The present study adds glacier length as a key parameter to global glacier inventories. Global and regional scaling laws might prove beneficial in conceptual glacier models.

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A data set of worldwide glacier length fluctuations

Cited by 82 publications

References 66 publications

Recent glacier mass balance and area changes in the Kangri Karpo Mountains from DEMs and glacier inventories

Recent glacier mass balance and area changes in the Kangri Karpo Mountains from DEMs and glacier inventories

Testing the consistency between changes in simulated climate and Alpine glacier length over the past millennium

The length of the world's glaciers – a new approach for the global calculation of center lines

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