Supra-glacial debris cover changes in the Greater Caucasus from 1986 to 2014

Levan G. Tielidze ^{1, 2}

Tobias Bolch ³

Roger D Wheate ⁴

S. S. Kutuzov ^{5, 6}

I. I. Lavrentiev ⁵

M. Zemp ⁷

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Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, 6140, Wellington, New Zealand |

Department of Geomorphology, Vakhushti Bagrationi Institute ofGeography, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, 6 Tamarashvili st.,0177, Tbilisi, Georgia |

School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of StAndrews, North Street, Irvine Building, St Andrews, KY16 9AL, Scotland, UK |

⁴

Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of NorthernBritish Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, V2N 4Z9, Canada |

⁵

Department of Glaciology, Institute of Geography, RussianAcademy of Sciences, 29 Staromonetniy Pereulok, 119017, Moscow, Russia |

⁶

Faculty of Geography and Geoinformation Technologies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Myasnitskaya Ulitsa, 20, 101000, Moscow, Russia |

⁷

Department of Geography, University of Zurich, 190Winterthurerstrasse, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland |

Publication type: Journal Article

Publication date: 2020-02-13

Copernicus

Journal: Cryosphere

scimago Q1

SJR: 2.132

CiteScore: 8.7

Impact factor: 4.4

ISSN: 19940416, 19940424

DOI: 10.5194/tc-14-585-2020

Copy DOI

Water Science and Technology

Earth-Surface Processes

Abstract

Abstract. Knowledge of supra-glacial debris cover and its changes remain incomplete in the Greater Caucasus, in spite of recent glacier studies. Here we present data of supra-glacial debris cover for 659 glaciers across the Greater Caucasus based on Landsat and SPOT images from the years 1986, 2000 and 2014. We combined semi-automated methods for mapping the clean ice with manual digitization of debris-covered glacier parts and calculated supra-glacial debris-covered area as the residual between these two maps. The accuracy of the results was assessed by using high-resolution Google Earth imagery and GPS data for selected glaciers. From 1986 to 2014, the total glacier area decreased from 691.5±29.0 to 590.0±25.8 km2 (15.8±4.1 %, or ∼0.52 % yr−1), while the clean-ice area reduced from 643.2±25.9 to 511.0±20.9 km2 (20.1±4.0 %, or ∼0.73 % yr−1). In contrast supra-glacial debris cover increased from 7.0±6.4 %, or 48.3±3.1 km2, in 1986 to 13.4±6.2 % (∼0.22 % yr−1), or 79.0±4.9 km2, in 2014. Debris-free glaciers exhibited higher area and length reductions than debris-covered glaciers. The distribution of the supra-glacial debris cover differs between the northern and southern and between the western, central and eastern Greater Caucasus. The observed increase in supra-glacial debris cover is significantly stronger on the northern slopes. Overall, we have observed up-glacier average migration of supra-glacial debris cover from about 3015 to 3130 m a.s.l. (metres above sea level) during the investigated period.

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