The Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Glacier Activities in the Eastern Pamir Plateau Investigated by Time Series Sub-Pixel Offsets From Sentinel-2 Optical Images

Abstract

The eastern Pamir Plateau, with a mean altitude of 5000 m, forms a large-scale glacier region with a size of 2054 km 2 that serves as an important environmental climate condition for central Asia. In this study, we estimated the spatio-temporal patterns of glacier activities in this region by using the time series sub-pixel offsets derived from 63 Sentinel-2 optical images between December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2021. Our results indicated the mean glacier flow velocity in this region was 0.531 m/d ± 0.007 m/d in 2021, and the Kongur Tagh Glacier was much more active than the Kingata Glacier and Muztagh Ata Glacier. The time series observations revealed that the glacier motion involves a pre-melting period (January-April) with a velocity of 0.600 m/d ± 0.012 m/d, a melting period (May-August) with a velocity of 0.608 m/d ± 0.003 m/d, and a post-melting period (September-December) with a velocity of 0.659 m/d ± 0.006 m/d. In order to get insights into the characteristics of these glacier activities, we carried out a correlation analysis between the glacier flow velocity change and its potential caused reasons (i.e., topography, temperature, precipitation, glacier surges, debriscover, and glacier thickness), and current results suggest that the glacier flow velocity is influenced by a combination of these factors.

Ice Thickness Measurement and Volume Modeling of Muztagh Ata Glacier No.16, Eastern Pamir

“…A portion of the Pamir Plateau, situated within China and referred to as the Eastern Pamir, is characterized by a highly developed glaciation, comprising 1179 glaciers that span an area of 2054 km 2 [37]. Muztagh Ata (38.17 • N, 75.06 • E; 7546 m a.s.l), one of the highest mountains situated on the Eastern Pamir, is influenced by the mid-latitude westerlies, making it one of the driest glaciated regions in China [46].…”

“…It is a highly glaciated region with 1179 glaciers covering a total area of 2054 km 2 [37], where measurement data are scarce, and the ice thickness distribution is highly uncertain. Numerous studies have analyzed the mass balance [38][39][40][41][42] and surface velocity of glaciers [37,[43][44][45] in the Eastern Pamir because of the "Pamir-Karakoram anomaly" [46] and frequent glacier surges [47]. However, research on ice thickness distribution in this region is limited.…”