Possibility of using remote sensing data for glaciological calculations and monitoring

Abstract

Altitude and areal characteristics of glaciation of the Earth, as well as annual ELA and AAR values for a limited number of glaciers can be found in references [10, 15, 16, 18, 29]. According to these data, the analysis of the relations between ELA, AAR, annual mass balance of glaciers and its components was performed for use in the remote monitoring of glaciation. Appropriate sample included 45 to 66 glaciers located mainly in Eurasia, at mean weighted altitudes Zmed from 520 m to 4253 m above sea level. The existence of close and stable spatial relations AAR = f (Bn) and AAR = f (ELA) (see Table 1) allows, ultimately obtain local or regional estimates of glacier mass balance. In 1957, the area of the moraine on the glaciers of the Pamir was 320 km 2 , or 4.8% of the total area of glaciers in the region, and after ~ 20 years it has increased to 644 km2 or 10.7% [10]. In this paper we used photos of glaciers Medvezhiy and Bivachny in late August 2007 and 2012 from the ISS. Ground resolution is of 3–5 meters. Photos were transformed into WGS projection and tied to a topographic map 1:50 000. Altitudinal interval of moraines propagation on glaciers Medvezhiy and Bivachny in 2007–2012 was equal to, respectively: 3000–5000 and 3400–4800 m above sea level. It was revealed increase of total area of the moraine on these glaciers for the years 1975– 2007. Analysis of the content and quality of the main sources of global and regional information about modern glaciation of the Earth shows that without additional thematic processing they are not suitable for monitoring the dynamics of glaciers in the major river basins and use on a par with the existing data on precipitation, temperature, humidity, cloud cover and other climatic characteristics. Additional processing should be provided to exclude asynchronies in morphometric parameters. This will reduce errors in glaciological interpretation of satellite images and improve the quality of spatial extrapolation of meteorological data. Examples are given of determining the spectral albedo of glacier surface, using ENVI software and remote sensing data from Landsat 7 ETM+ and TERRA. Application of the methods for determining the albedo on the one hand creates additional opportunities for remote monitoring of glaciers, on the other – provides calculation different types of melted glacier surface as a function of absorbed solar radiation.