Recent Alpine Glacier Variability: Wind River Range, Wyoming, USA

Abstract

Glacier area and volume changes were quantified through the use of historical aerial photographs in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. Forty-four glaciers in the Wind River Range were analyzed using orthorectified aerial photography from 2012. This is an update to the work of Thompson et al. [1] in which the surface area changes of the 44 glaciers were estimated from 1966 to 2006. The total surface area of the glaciers was estimated to be 27.8 ± 0.8 km 2 , a decrease of 39% from 1966 and a decrease of 2% from 2006. The 2012 volume changes for the 44 glaciers were estimated using the Bahr et al. [2] volume-area scaling technique. The total glacier volume in 2012 was calculated to be 1.01 ± 0.21 km 3 , a decrease of 63% from 1966. These results, once compared to temperature and snowpack trends, suggest that the downward trend in snowpack as well as increasing temperatures seem to be the most likely driver of the glacier recessions. With Global Circulation Models (GCMs) forecasting higher temperatures and lower precipitation in the western U.S., it is likely that glaciers will continue to recede.

Automated mapping of persistent ice and snow cover across the western U.S. with Landsat

“…The 54% difference in PISC area in the Wind River Range is similar to the 39% reduction in ice area observed by Maloof et al (2014Maloof et al ( ) between 1967Maloof et al ( and 2006, and it is not unreasonable to expect that substantial additional ice loss may have occurred after 2006. While the 21% difference in PISC mapped in the North Cascades is substantially more than the 7% reduction observed by Granshaw and Fountain (2006) between 1958and 1998 in this region, ice loss has continued at a rapid rate since 1998 in the North Cascades (Pelto and Brown, 2012).…”

“…Further south, in the Sierra Nevada of California, an average ice loss of 55% occurred between 1903 and 2004 (Basagic and Fountain, 2011). In the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, ice cover decreased in the Wind River Range by approximately 47% between 1900(DeVisser and Fountain, 2015, and 39% between 1967 and 2006 (Maloof et al, 2014). In the nearby Teton Range, ice cover declined by http (Edmunds et al, 2012).…”

Glaciers Control the Hydrogeochemistry of Proglacial Streams During Late Summer in the Wind River Range, Wyoming, United States

“…The Wind River Range (Figure 1) was selected for this study because it is the most glaciated area of the American Rocky Mountains and forms the headwaters for three major river systems in the Western United States: the Green-Colorado Rivers, the Wind-Missouri Rivers, and the Snake-Columbia Rivers (Marston et al, 1991). Other studies have quantified glacier ice loss in the Wind River Range (Marston et al, 1991;Cheesbrough et al, 2009;Thompson et al, 2011;Hall et al, 2012;McCabe and Fountain, 2013;VanLooy et al, 2013;Maloof et al, 2014;DeVisser and Fountain, 2015;Hall et al, 2015;Vanlooy et al, 2017), contributions of glacier melt to stream discharge (Cheesbrough et al, 2009;Cable et al, 2011;VanLooy and Vandeberg, 2019) and recent increases in atmospheric deposition of Hg and other metals in ice cores (Schuster et al, 2002;Aarons et al, 2016). However, the effects of melting glacier ice on stream chemistry in the Wind River Range have not been studied extensively.…”