Abstract
The variation of glacier mass balance during the past decades remains poorly known for Duxueshan, Burog Kangri, and Zangser Kangri (DBZ) which are located in the Inner Tibetan Plateau (ITP), a transition zone with shifting influences between the westerlies and the Indian summer monsoon. In the present study, glacier area and mass changes were determined by topographic maps (TOPO), Landsat imagery and multi-temporal digital elevation models (DEMs) generated with TOPO, SRTM, TanDEM-X bistatic interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) images, and High Mountain Asia 8-m DEMs. On average, the glaciers showed a slight retreat from 343.27 ± 5.23 km2 in 1971 to 334.67 ± 3.21 km2 in 2018 (0.05 ± 0.04% a−1). However, glaciers lost mass at a rate of -0.32 ± 0.03 m w.e. a−1 from 1971 to 2012. For the 1999–2012 and 2012–2017 periods, mass balances of − 0.03 ± 0.16 and 0.09 ± 0.04 m w.e. a−1, respectively, were observed, which represents an approximately equilibrium. Two glaciers also advanced in our investigation period, and we confirmed one of them surged in 2015.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41701087, 41701071 and 41471067); the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA19070501) and International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 131C11KYSB20160061). Landsat, SRTM C-band and ASTER data were acquired from the US Geological Survey and NASA. The GoLIVE data were from NSIDC. The High Mountain Asia 8-m DEMs were from NASA. The first and second glacier inventories were provided by a past MOST project (2006FY110200) (https://westdc.westgis.ac.cn/glacier). The authors also thank DLR for access to SRTM X-band and TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X data.
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Zhang, Z., Du, Z., Liu, S. et al. Glacier mass changes over Duxueshan, Burog Kangri, and Zangser Kangri in the Inner Tibetan Plateau. Environ Earth Sci 79, 292 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-020-09044-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-020-09044-w