No abstract

Between 13 October and 15 October 2014 many people were trapped by a heavy snowstorm event at Thorong La Pass (5416m amsl) on the famous Annapurna Circuit in northern Nepal, resulting 43 fatalities. In this short communication we show a climate record of an Automatic Weather Station (AWS) which is located at a similar altitude to Thorong La Pass but is 300km to the northwest along the main Himalayan ridge. Additionally, the record of the extent of the snow cover in the region was derived from Landsat 8 satellite images taken before and after the snowstorm event. During the event the AWS recorded a snow accumulation of 0.37m, while the snow cover in the study area increased from 1880km2 on 9 October to 17 44°km2 on 25 October. Our results, and findings from our personal communication with local people, show that the extent of the disastrous snowstorm event affected a much larger area than reported by the media, which concentrated its coverage solely on the Annapurna region.

No abstract

No abstract

Abstract. A network consisting of six cameras was set up on both sides of Lange Glacier on King George Island, Antarctica, for a period of two years to monitor changes in the glacier’s motion behaviour. The cameras were observing spatio-temporal glacier surface velocity vector fields as well as the position of the glacier front. Velocity field information was obtained from image sequences by applying subpixel accuracy photogrammetric image sequence analysis techniques. Georeferencing in a superordinate coordinate system was performed via integrated photogrammetric-geodetic network adjustment. As a result, velocity fields were determined with maximum glacier surface velocities in the order of 1.5 meter per day. The results of terrestrial camera image sequence processing can be used as validation and calibration reference for satellite image based glacier velocity dynamics calculations. Moreover, the very high temporal resolution of the image sequences taken at 20 minute time intervals can also be used to analyse highly dynamic processes.