Consideration of the errors inherent in mapping historical glacier positions in Austria from the ground and space (1893–2001)

Hall, Dorothy K.; Bayr, Klaus J.; Schöner, Wolfgang; Bindschadler, Robert; Chien, Janet Y. L.

doi:10.1016/s0034-4257(03)00134-2

Cited by 326 publications

(214 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…(1) Errors in glacier mapping are possible. Previous studies show that this uncertainty is related to spatial resolution, correction and co-registration of images [27,28]. Based on 1 : 50000 topographic maps (with a resolution of 5 m), the estimated uncertainty values were ±31 m and ±12 m for glacier termini positions, and ±0.0009 km 2 and ±0.0001 km 2 for glacier areas, calculated from the ASTER and SPOT5 scenes, respectively.…”

Section: Study Area and Datamentioning

confidence: 87%

Recent glacial retreat and its effect on water resources in eastern Xinjiang

Gao

et al. 2011

Chin. Sci. Bull.

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The eastern Xinjiang Basin is desperately short of water. Most rivers in the basin originate in the high eastern Tianshan, which has abundant precipitation and numerous alpine glaciers. Fieldwork conducted on three reference glaciers around Mt. Bogda in 1981 and suggests that they all strongly melt in summer, a process that has tended to accelerate in recent decades. Based on topographic maps from 1962 and 1972 and 2005/2006 . South-facing glaciers lost more of their area than those that are north facing, yielding an areal loss of 25.3% and 16.9% for southern and northern slopes of Mt. Bogda, respectively, and 12.3% and 6.6% for the comparable slopes of Mt. Harlik. Glaciers smaller than 0.5 km 2 in area experienced the strongest retreat, whereas glaciers larger than 2 km 2 in area experienced gentle recession but may be the main contributors in the future to river runoff. Glacial ablation in eastern Xinjiang tends to be strong, and the water resources in this region are deteriorating. Also, a heavy reduction in the capacity of the local karez system, as well as a significant change in river runoff, can be related to glacial retreat. Combined, this will adversely affect the downstream city of Urumqi and the Turfan Basin. Climate change is of great concern the world over, particularly regarding the effect of humanity on the existing environment and vice versa. Under continued warming over the last several decades, alpine glacier retreat has accelerated. Surface melting has occurred even on high-altitude glaciers [1]. Moreover, about 75% of the fresh water of the world comes from glaciers [2], thus retreating glaciers will have a strong influence on the regional hydrologic balance and economic sustainability. Climate warming, regardless of whether it is caused by anthropogenic factors or by nature, has led to strong global glacier recession. In fact, changes in alpine glaciers are one of the best natural indicators of climate change because a small change in climatic parameters will result in pronounced geometric changes in glacier shape and size. Many studies show that strong glacial wastage has been the major trend [3,4] over the period from 1993 to 2003 during which time sea level has risen about 0.77 ± 0.18 mm as a result, primarily, of that glacier melting [5]. Using two climate models, sea level is estimated to rise 0.046 m and 0.051 m as a result of mountain glaciers and ice caps melting by 2100 [6]. The estimate of China's potential contribution to cryospheric change is a sea level rise of 0.14-0.16 mm a 1 , of which the contribution of meltwaters from glaciers is assessed at about 0.12 mm a 1 [7]. The problems associated with strong mountain glacier melt are glacial hazards such as glacial lake outburst floods and

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Section: Study Area and Datamentioning

confidence: 87%

Recent glacial retreat and its effect on water resources in eastern Xinjiang

Gao

et al. 2011

Chin. Sci. Bull.

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“…In general, the glacier outlines derived from satellite datasets at various spatial and temporal resolutions are subject to various degrees of uncertainty Paul et al, 2013). Similarly, the positional accuracy of the glacier snouts is influenced by the sensor resolution (Williams et al, 1997) and coregistration error (Hall et al, 2003). However, in this study, the utilized Landsat (e.g., TM/ETM+) data sources were having similar spatial resolutions, except the Landsat MSS image.…”

Section: Uncertainty In the Studymentioning

confidence: 91%