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Titel |
Area and volume loss of the glaciers in the Ortles-Cevedale group (Eastern Italian Alps): controls and imbalance of the remaining glaciers |
VerfasserIn |
L. Carturan, R. Filippi, R. Seppi, P. Gabrielli, C. Notarnicola, L. Bertoldi, F. Paul, P. Rastner, F. Cazorzi, R. Dinale, G. Dalla Fontana |
Medientyp |
Artikel
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Sprache |
Englisch
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ISSN |
1994-0416
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Digitales Dokument |
URL |
Erschienen |
In: The Cryosphere ; 7, no. 5 ; Nr. 7, no. 5 (2013-09-02), S.1339-1359 |
Datensatznummer |
250085152
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Publikation (Nr.) |
copernicus.org/tc-7-1339-2013.pdf |
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Zusammenfassung |
A widespread loss of glacier area and volume has been observed in the
European Alps since the 1980s. In addition to differences among various
regions of the Alps, different responses to climate change characterize
neighboring glaciers within the same region. In this study we describe the
glacier changes in the Ortles-Cevedale group, the largest glacierized area in
the Italian Alps. We analyze the spatial variability, the drivers, and the
main factors controlling the current loss of ice in this region, by comparing
mean elevation changes derived from two digital terrain models (DTMs), along
with glacier extents and snow-covered areas derived from Landsat images
acquired in 1987 and 2009, to various topographic factors. Glacier outlines
were obtained using the band ratio method with manual corrections. Snow was
classified from a near-infrared image after topographic correction. The total
glacierized area shrank by 23.4 ± 3% in this period, with no
significant changes in the mean altitude of the glaciers. In 2009 the
snowline was 240 m higher than in the 1960s and 1970s. From the snow-covered
area at the end of summer 2009, which fairly represents the extent and local
variability of the accumulation areas in the 2000s, we estimate that
approximately 50% of the remaining glacier surfaces have to melt away to
re-establish balanced mass budgets with present climatic conditions. The
average geodetic mass budget rate, calculated for 112 ice bodies by
differencing two DTMs, ranged from −0.18 ± 0.04 to
−1.43 ± 0.09 m w.e. a−1, averaging
−0.69 ± 0.12 m w.e. a−1. The correlation analysis of mass
budgets vs. topographic variables emphasized the important role of hypsometry
in controlling the area and volume loss of larger glaciers, whereas a higher
variability characterizes smaller glaciers, which is likely due to the higher
importance of local topo-climatic conditions. |
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