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| Titel |
Reconstructing 50 years of glacier mass changes in Central Asia |
| VerfasserIn |
Daniel Farinotti, Andreas Güntner, Laurent Longuevergne, Geir Moholdt, Holger Steffen, Doris Düthmann, Abror Gafurov |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250093057
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-7428.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Recent studies assessing the glacier mass balance at the regional to global scale, have tried to
consider different data sources in order to increase the robustness of the results. The
combined use of data from satellite gravimetry, satellite altimetry, as well as from in-situ
and geodetic mass balance measurements is increasingly found in the literature.
Constrained by the need of simultaneous data availability from the various sources,
however, such studies have typically focused on rather short time frames. For Central
Asia, and the Tien Shan mountain range in particular, analyses have mostly been
addressing the time period 2003-2009, concluding that the total mass change rate of the
glaciers in the region has to be approximately -7 Gt water equivalent (w.e.) per
year.
In this contribution, we use an ensemble approach based on data from (a) the Gravity
Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), (b) the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite
(ICESat) mission, and (c) in-situ glacier mass balance measurements, for validating a
glacier mass balance model that we use for reconstructing a continuous time series
for the glacier mass-change of the Tien Shan mountain range during the period
1961-2012. Our model ensemble takes into account a series of different possibilities for
process description, inter- and extrapolation methods, as well as meteorological
drivers.
Our results confirm previous estimates derived for the period 2003-2009, and highlight an
accelerating trend in glacier mass loss. For 1961-2012, we estimate an average glacier
mass-change rate of -6.1±5.4 Gt w.e. a-1, whilst the average mass-change rate for the decade
2003-2012 is estimated with -7.5±5.5 Gt w.e. a-1. This further increases the concern about
the future of a region that significantly depends on glacier melt for water supply. |
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