Glacier characteristics and changes in the Sary-Jaz River Basin (Central Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan) – 1990–2010

Abstract

The water discharge from the heavily glacierized Sary-Jaz River Basin (Eastern Kyrgyzstan) is of high importance for the very arid Tarim Basin located in Xinjiang (north-western China). We investigated glacier changes in the entire Sary-Jaz River Basin, which covers a large part of the Central Tien Shan, for the period from 1990 to 2010 based on Landsat 'TM'/'ETM+'data. We found 1310 glaciers (>0.1 km²), which covered 2055 ± 41.1 km² ( 18% of the entire basin) in 1990. The glaciers shrank by 77.1 ± 57.1 km² (3.7 ± 2.7%) until 2010. This is considerably lower than in most other ranges of the Tien Shan. The lowest insignificant area loss (−1.5 ± 2.7%) was found in the eastern part of the basin where the largest glaciers and highest peaks are situated. Debris-covered glaciers shrank significantly less than clean-ice glaciers of comparable size. We also identified a few advancing glaciers which show surge characteristics. Climate data from the Tien Shan weather station (3614 m asl.) close to the study region showed no significant long-term trend. Remote Sensing Letters, 2013 Vol. 4, No. 8, 725-734, http The water discharge from the heavily glacierized Sary-Jaz River Basin (Eastern Kyrgyzstan) is of high importance for the very arid Tarim Basin located in Xinjiang (north-western China). We investigated glacier changes in the entire Sary-Jaz River Basin, which covers a large part of the Central Tien Shan, for the period from 1990 to 2010 based on Landsat 'TM'/'ETM+'data. We found 1310 glaciers (>0.1 km 2 ), which covered 2055 ± 41.1 km 2 (∼18% of the entire basin) in 1990. The glaciers shrank by 77.1 ± 57.1 km 2 (3.7 ± 2.7%) until 2010. This is considerably lower than in most other ranges of the Tien Shan. The lowest insignificant area loss (−1.5 ± 2.7%) was found in the eastern part of the basin where the largest glaciers and highest peaks are situated. Debris-covered glaciers shrank significantly less than clean-ice glaciers of comparable size. We also identified a few advancing glaciers which show surge characteristics. Climate data from the Tien Shan weather station (3614 m asl.) close to the study region showed no significant long-term trend.

Glacier area and mass changes since 1964 in the Ala Archa Valley, Kyrgyz Ala-Too, northern Tien Shan

“…The resultant un certainties vary between 2 .2% for Corona KH4B and 8 .2% for the Landsat TM data . This is within the range of previously reported uncertainties of semiautomated methods [13,39,40] and manual delineation [38] .…”

Mass balance observations and reconstruction for Batysh Sook Glacier, Tien Shan, from 2004 to 2016

“…Vilesov and Uvarov, 2001;Khromova et al, 2003;Jing et al, 2006;Li et al, 2006;Hagg et al, 2007;Bolch, 2007;Ozmonov et al, 2013;Petrakov et al, 2016). Glacier volume assessments from satellite surveys confirm a trend toward mass loss over the recent decades for the Central and Inner Tien-Shan (e.g.…”

Glacier Mass Loss during the 1960s and 1970s in the Ak-Shirak Range (Kyrgyzstan) from Multiple Stereoscopic Corona and Hexagon Imagery

“…These seasonal variations should be considered [48]. In this specific case, we did not apply any seasonal corrections because the Ak-Shirak is situated in an arid region (mean annual precipitation measured at Tian Shan statioñ 320 mm, elevation 3614 m a.s.l., Figure 1) with precipitation maximum in summer and very low precipitation [8] in winter. Additionally, the acquired scenes show no visible differences in snow cover (Supplementary Materials Figure S2) and thus the seasonal effect is within the estimated uncertainty.…”

“…The Ak-Shirak massif (~40 × 40 km 2 ), located at the western margin of the Central Tian Shan (sometimes also considered Inner Tian Shan, Figure 1), was covered by more than 150 glaciers with an area of~380 km 2 in 1964 and showed the highest glacier mass loss in the Central Tian Shan [5]. In the Ak-Shirak area, which is also well known for surge-type glaciers [6,7], an important part of the accumulation process takes place in summer [8]. At the Tian Shan meteorological station (3614 m a.s.l.…”