Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images
ABSTRACT To better understand the recent wide-scale changes in glacier coverage, we created and compared two glacier inventories covering eastern Nepal, based on aerial photographs (1992) and high-resolution Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) imagery (2006–10). The ALOS-derived inventory conta...
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Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.61 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143016000617 |
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crcambridgeupr:10.1017/jog.2016.61 2024-09-09T19:49:02+00:00 Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images OJHA, SUNAL FUJITA, KOJI ASAHI, KATSUHIKO SAKAI, AKIKO LAMSAL, DAMODAR NUIMURA, TAKAYUKI NAGAI, HIROTO 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.61 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143016000617 en eng Cambridge University Press (CUP) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Journal of Glaciology volume 62, issue 233, page 512-524 ISSN 0022-1430 1727-5652 journal-article 2016 crcambridgeupr https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.61 2024-06-19T04:03:21Z ABSTRACT To better understand the recent wide-scale changes in glacier coverage, we created and compared two glacier inventories covering eastern Nepal, based on aerial photographs (1992) and high-resolution Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) imagery (2006–10). The ALOS-derived inventory contained 1034 debris-free and 256 debris-covered glaciers with total and average areas of 440.2 ± 33.3 and 0.42 km 2 and 1074.4 ± 206.4 and 4.19 km 2 , respectively. We found that the debris-free glaciers have lost 11.2% (0.7 ± 0.1% a −1 ) of their area since 1992, whereas the number of glaciers increased by 5% because of fragmentation. The area change was significantly correlated by simple linear regression with minimum elevation ( r = 0.30), maximum elevation ( r = −0.18), altitudinal range ( r = −0.50), glacier area ( r = −0.62) and mean slope ( r = 0.16), confirming that larger glaciers tended to lose a larger area (but a smaller percentage) than smaller glaciers. The intra-regional analysis of the glacier changes clearly showed higher shrinkage rates in the western massifs compared with the eastern massifs. In addition, 61 small glaciers covering an area of 2.4 km 2 have completely disappeared since 1992. Article in Journal/Newspaper Journal of Glaciology Cambridge University Press Journal of Glaciology 62 233 512 524 |
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Open Polar |
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Cambridge University Press |
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crcambridgeupr |
language |
English |
description |
ABSTRACT To better understand the recent wide-scale changes in glacier coverage, we created and compared two glacier inventories covering eastern Nepal, based on aerial photographs (1992) and high-resolution Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) imagery (2006–10). The ALOS-derived inventory contained 1034 debris-free and 256 debris-covered glaciers with total and average areas of 440.2 ± 33.3 and 0.42 km 2 and 1074.4 ± 206.4 and 4.19 km 2 , respectively. We found that the debris-free glaciers have lost 11.2% (0.7 ± 0.1% a −1 ) of their area since 1992, whereas the number of glaciers increased by 5% because of fragmentation. The area change was significantly correlated by simple linear regression with minimum elevation ( r = 0.30), maximum elevation ( r = −0.18), altitudinal range ( r = −0.50), glacier area ( r = −0.62) and mean slope ( r = 0.16), confirming that larger glaciers tended to lose a larger area (but a smaller percentage) than smaller glaciers. The intra-regional analysis of the glacier changes clearly showed higher shrinkage rates in the western massifs compared with the eastern massifs. In addition, 61 small glaciers covering an area of 2.4 km 2 have completely disappeared since 1992. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
OJHA, SUNAL FUJITA, KOJI ASAHI, KATSUHIKO SAKAI, AKIKO LAMSAL, DAMODAR NUIMURA, TAKAYUKI NAGAI, HIROTO |
spellingShingle |
OJHA, SUNAL FUJITA, KOJI ASAHI, KATSUHIKO SAKAI, AKIKO LAMSAL, DAMODAR NUIMURA, TAKAYUKI NAGAI, HIROTO Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images |
author_facet |
OJHA, SUNAL FUJITA, KOJI ASAHI, KATSUHIKO SAKAI, AKIKO LAMSAL, DAMODAR NUIMURA, TAKAYUKI NAGAI, HIROTO |
author_sort |
OJHA, SUNAL |
title |
Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images |
title_short |
Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images |
title_full |
Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images |
title_fullStr |
Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images |
title_full_unstemmed |
Glacier area shrinkage in eastern Nepal Himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and ALOS satellite images |
title_sort |
glacier area shrinkage in eastern nepal himalaya since 1992 using high-resolution inventories from aerial photographs and alos satellite images |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.61 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143016000617 |
genre |
Journal of Glaciology |
genre_facet |
Journal of Glaciology |
op_source |
Journal of Glaciology volume 62, issue 233, page 512-524 ISSN 0022-1430 1727-5652 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2016.61 |
container_title |
Journal of Glaciology |
container_volume |
62 |
container_issue |
233 |
container_start_page |
512 |
op_container_end_page |
524 |
_version_ |
1809918420826718208 |