Mass balance and area changes of glaciers in the Cordillera Real and Tres Cruces, Bolivia, between 2000 and 2016

Climate change has led to a significant shrinkage of glaciers in the Tropical Andes during the last decades. Recent multi-temporal quantifications of ice mass loss at mountain range to regional scale are missing. However, this is fundamental information for future water resource planning and glacier change projections. In this study, we measure temporally consistent glacier area changes and geodetic mass balances throughout the Bolivian Cordillera Real and Tres Cruces based on multi-sensor remote-sensing data. By analyzing multi-spectral satellite images and interferometric SAR data, a glacier recession of 81 ± 18 km2 (29%; 5.1 ± 1.1 km2 a−1), a geodetic mass balance of −403 ± 78 kg m−2 a−1 and a total ice mass loss of 1.8 ± 0.5 Gt is derived for 2000–2016. In the period 2013–2016, ice mass loss was 21% above the average rate. A retreat rate of 15 ± 5 km2 a−1 and a mass budget of −487 ± 349 kg m−2 a−1 are found in this more recent period. These higher change rates can be attributed to the strong El Niño event in 2015/16. The analyses of individual glacier changes and topographic variables confirmed the dependency of the mass budget and glacier recession on glacier aspect and median elevation

Changes of the tropical glaciers throughout Peru between 2000 and 2016 – mass balance and area fluctuations

Glaciers in tropical regions are very sensitive to climatic variations and thus strongly affected by climate change. The majority of the tropical glaciers worldwide are located in the Peruvian Andes, which have shown significant ice loss in the last century. Here, we present the first multi-temporal, region-wide survey of geodetic mass balances and glacier area fluctuations throughout Peru covering the period 2000–2016. Glacier extents are derived from Landsat imagery by performing automatic glacier delineation based on a combination of the NDSI and band ratio method and final manual inspection and correction. The mapping of debris-covered glacier extents is supported by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) coherence information. A total glacier area loss of  km2 (−29 %, −34.3 km2 a−1) is obtained for the study period. Using interferometric satellite SAR acquisitions, bi-temporal geodetic mass balances are derived. An average specific mass balance of  kg m−2 a−1 is found throughout Peru for the period 2000–2016. However, there are strong regional and temporal differences in the mass budgets ranging from 45±97 to  kg m−2 a−1. The ice loss increased towards the end of the observation period. Between 2013 and 2016, a retreat of the glacierized area of  km2 (−16 %, −101.9 km2 a−1) is mapped and the average mass budget amounts to  kg m−2 a−1. The glacier changes revealed can be attributed to changes in the climatic settings in the study region, derived from ERA-Interim reanalysis data and the Oceanic Nino Index. The intense El Niño activities in 2015/16 are most likely the trigger for the increased change rates in the time interval 2013–2016. Our observations provide fundamental information on the current dramatic glacier changes for local authorities and for the calibration and validation of glacier change projections

Pixel-wise Distance Regression for Glacier Calving Front Detection and Segmentation

Glacier calving front position (CFP) is an important glaciological variable. Traditionally, delineating the CFPs has been carried out manually, which was subjective, tedious and expensive. Automating this process is crucial for continuously monitoring the evolution and status of glaciers. Recently, deep learning approaches have been investigated for this application. However, the current methods get challenged by a severe class-imbalance problem. In this work, we propose to mitigate the class-imbalance between the calving front class and the non-calving front class by reformulating the segmentation problem into a pixel-wise regression task. A Convolutional Neural Network gets optimized to predict the distance values to the glacier front for each pixel in the image. The resulting distance map localizes the CFP and is further post-processed to extract the calving front line. We propose three post-processing methods, one method based on statistical thresholding, a second method based on conditional random fields (CRF), and finally the use of a second U-Net. The experimental results confirm that our approach significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art methods and produces accurate delineation. The Second U-Net obtains the best performance results, resulting in an average improvement of about 21% dice coefficient enhancement

Uncertainty Assessment of Ice Discharge Using GPR-Derived Ice Thickness from Gourdon Glacier, Antarctic Peninsula

Ice cliffs within a glacier represent a challenge for the continuity equations used in many glacier models by interrupting the validity of input parameters. In the case of Gourdon Glacier on James Ross Island, Antarctica, a ∼300–500 m high, almost vertical cliff, separates the outlet glacier from its main accumulation area on the plateau of the island. In 2017 and 2018 we conducted ice thickness measurements during two airborne ground penetrating radar campaigns in order to evaluate differences to older measurements from the 1990s. The observed differences are mostly smaller than the estimated error bars. In comparison to the in situ data, the published “consensus ice thickness estimate” strongly overestimates the ice thickness at the outlet. We analyse three different interpolation and ice thickness reconstruction methods. One approach additionally includes the mass input from the plateau. Differences between the interpolation methods have a minor impact on the ice discharge estimation if the used flux gates are in areas with a good coverage of in situ measurements. A much stronger influence was observed by uncertainties in the glacier velocities derived from remote sensing, especially in the direction of the velocity vector in proximity to the ice cliff. We conclude that the amount of in situ measurements should be increased for specific glacier types in order to detect biases in modeled ice thickness and ice discharge estimations

60 Years of Glacier Elevation and Mass Changes in the Maipo River Basin, Central Andes of Chile

Glaciers in the central Andes of Chile are fundamental freshwater sources for ecosystems and communities. Overall, glaciers in this region have shown continuous recession and down-wasting, but long-term glacier mass balance studies providing precise estimates of these changes are scarce. Here, we present the first long-term (1955–2013/2015), region-specific glacier elevation and mass change estimates for the Maipo River Basin, from which the densely populated metropolitan region of Chile obtains most of its freshwater supply. We calculated glacier elevation and mass changes using historical topographic maps, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurements (TanDEM-X), and airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) digital elevation models. The results indicated a mean regional glacier mass balance of −0.12 ± 0.06 m w.e.a−1, with a total mass loss of 2.43 ± 0.26 Gt for the Maipo River Basin between 1955–2013. The most negative glacier mass balance was the Olivares sub-basin, with a mean value of −0.29 ± 0.07 m w.e.a−1. We observed spatially heterogeneous glacier elevation and mass changes between 1955 and 2000, and more negative values between 2000 and 2013, with an acceleration in ice thinning rates starting in 2010, which coincides with the severe drought. Our results provide key information to improve glaciological and hydrological projections in a region where water resources are under pressure