Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming
While the responses of Tien Shan glaciers – and glaciers elsewhere – to climatic changes are becoming increasingly well understood, this is less the case for permafrost in general and for rock glaciers in particular. We use a novel approach to describe the climate sensitivity of rock glaciers and to...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4319170 2023-05-15T17:57:48+02:00 Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming Sorg, Annina Kääb, Andreas Roesch, Andrea Bigler, Christof Stoffel, Markus 2015-02-06 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4319170 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25657095 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08228 en eng Nature Publishing Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25657095 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep08228 Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08228 2015-02-15T01:00:27Z While the responses of Tien Shan glaciers – and glaciers elsewhere – to climatic changes are becoming increasingly well understood, this is less the case for permafrost in general and for rock glaciers in particular. We use a novel approach to describe the climate sensitivity of rock glaciers and to reconstruct periods of high and low rock glacier activity in the Tien Shan since 1895. Using more than 1500 growth anomalies from 280 trees growing on rock glacier bodies, repeat aerial photography from Soviet archives and high-resolution satellite imagery, we present here the world's longest record of rock glacier movements. We also demonstrate that the rock glaciers exhibit synchronous periods of activity at decadal timescales. Despite the complex energy-balance processes on rock glaciers, periods of enhanced activity coincide with warm summers, and the annual mass balance of Tuyuksu glacier fluctuates asynchronously with rock glacier activity. At multi-decadal timescales, however, the investigated rock glaciers exhibit site-specific trends reflecting different stages of inactivation, seemingly in response to the strong increase in air temperature since the 1970s. Text permafrost Low Rock PubMed Central (PMC) Low Rock ENVELOPE(-37.011,-37.011,-54.496,-54.496) Scientific Reports 5 1 |
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Article Sorg, Annina Kääb, Andreas Roesch, Andrea Bigler, Christof Stoffel, Markus Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming |
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Article |
description |
While the responses of Tien Shan glaciers – and glaciers elsewhere – to climatic changes are becoming increasingly well understood, this is less the case for permafrost in general and for rock glaciers in particular. We use a novel approach to describe the climate sensitivity of rock glaciers and to reconstruct periods of high and low rock glacier activity in the Tien Shan since 1895. Using more than 1500 growth anomalies from 280 trees growing on rock glacier bodies, repeat aerial photography from Soviet archives and high-resolution satellite imagery, we present here the world's longest record of rock glacier movements. We also demonstrate that the rock glaciers exhibit synchronous periods of activity at decadal timescales. Despite the complex energy-balance processes on rock glaciers, periods of enhanced activity coincide with warm summers, and the annual mass balance of Tuyuksu glacier fluctuates asynchronously with rock glacier activity. At multi-decadal timescales, however, the investigated rock glaciers exhibit site-specific trends reflecting different stages of inactivation, seemingly in response to the strong increase in air temperature since the 1970s. |
format |
Text |
author |
Sorg, Annina Kääb, Andreas Roesch, Andrea Bigler, Christof Stoffel, Markus |
author_facet |
Sorg, Annina Kääb, Andreas Roesch, Andrea Bigler, Christof Stoffel, Markus |
author_sort |
Sorg, Annina |
title |
Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming |
title_short |
Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming |
title_full |
Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming |
title_fullStr |
Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming |
title_full_unstemmed |
Contrasting responses of Central Asian rock glaciers to global warming |
title_sort |
contrasting responses of central asian rock glaciers to global warming |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4319170 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25657095 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08228 |
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ENVELOPE(-37.011,-37.011,-54.496,-54.496) |
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Low Rock |
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Low Rock |
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permafrost Low Rock |
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permafrost Low Rock |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25657095 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep08228 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08228 |
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Scientific Reports |
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5 |
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