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Glacier Change in the North Cascades, Washington: 1900-2009

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Glacier Change in the North Cascades, Washington: 1900-2009 Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Spring 6-6-2013 Glacier Change in the North Cascades, Washington: 1900-2009 Kristina Amanda Dick Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Climate Commons, and the Glaciology Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Dick, Kristina Amanda, "Glacier Change in the North Cascades, Washington: 1900-2009" (2013). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 1062. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.1062 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Glacier Change in the North Cascades, Washington: 1900-2009 by Kristina Amanda Dick A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geography Thesis Committee: Andrew G. Fountain, Chair Heejun Chang Martin Lafrenz Portland State University 2013 1 Abstract Glaciers respond to local climate changes making them important indicators of regional climate change. The North Cascades region of Washington is the most glaciated region in the lower-48 states with approximately 25% of all glaciers and 40% of the total ice-covered area. While there are many on- going investigations of specific glaciers, little research has addressed the entire glacier cover of the region. A reference inventory of glaciers was derived from a comparison of two different inventories dating to about 1958. The different inventories agree within 93% of total number of glaciers and 94% of total ice- covered area. To quantify glacier change over the past century aerial photographs, topographic maps, and geologic maps were used. In ~1900 total area was about 533.89 ± 22.77 km 2 and by 2009 the area was reduced by -56% ± 3% to 236.20 ± 12.60 km 2. Most of that change occurred in the first half of the 20 th century, between 1900 and 1958, -245.59 ± 25.97 km2 (-46% ± 5%) was lost, followed by a period of stability/growth in mid-century (-1% ± 3% from 1958- 1990) then decline since the 1990s (-9% ± 3% from 1990-2009). The century- scale loss is associated with increasing regional temperatures warming in winter and summer; precipitation shows no trend. On a decadal time scale winter precipitation and winter and summer temperatures are important factors correlated with area loss. Topographically, smaller glaciers at lower elevations with steeper slopes and higher mean insolation exhibited greater loss than higher, gentler more shaded glaciers. i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my adviser, Andrew G. Fountain for his guidance and support throughout this thesis project and to the committee members, Heejun Chang and Martin Lafrenz for their insights. Support for this research is from the USGS via the Western Mountain Initiative (WMI). I would also like to thank my S7 officemates for the valuable discussions of all things glacier. Last but not certainly not least, thanks to my family and my husband Aaron for all of their encouragement and support. ii Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ........................................................................ ii List of Tables .............................................................................. iv List of Figures ............................................................................. vi Chapter 1 - Introduction Study Area ................................................................................ 3 Previous Glacier Studies ................................................................ 7 Chapter 2 – Glacier Population Inventory Introduction ............................................................................ 10 Methods ................................................................................. 10 Results .................................................................................. 13 Analysis ................................................................................. 19 Discussion & Conclusions ............................................................. 26 Chapter 3 – Temporal Glacier Inventory Introduction ............................................................................ 29 Methods ................................................................................. 29 Results .................................................................................. 33 Analysis ................................................................................. 36 Discussion & Conclusions ............................................................. 59 Chapter 4 – Climate and Topographic Analysis Introduction ............................................................................ 62 Methods ................................................................................. 63 Results .................................................................................. 66 Discussion & Conclusions ............................................................. 81 Chapter 5 – Discussion and Conclusions .............................................. 85 References ................................................................................ 90 Appendix A – 24K Subset ................................................................ 98 Appendix B – Temporal Glacier Inventories ......................................... 115 Appendix C – Climate Data ............................................................ 128 Supplemental CD ........................................................................ 130 iii List of Tables Table 1 – Number and area of glaciers and perennial snowfields for each inventory. ................................................................... 20 Table 2 – Estimates of ‘true’ glaciers using a shear stress threshold for the 24K inventory for the two sets of parameters (A) and (B)........... 25 Table 3 - Comparison of inventories using different methods.. ................. 27 Table 4 - Data sources and spatial coverage for glacier inventories and temporal data sets. ....................................................... 30 Table 5 – Results of the temporal glacier inventories. ............................ 34 Table 6 - The results of the temporal glacier inventory displaying the number of glaciers in common for each combination of inventories, (A) refers to the glacier time series that has a 1900 glacier outline in common with each other inventories (B) is the inventories that have 24K outlines in common and (C) is the inventories that have an aerial imagery year in common. .......... 37 Table 7 – Sample size of identical glaciers present in each inventory. ......... 38 Table 8 - Total area and uncertainty (km 2) for the two different groups of glaciers. ..................................................................... 39 Table 9 – Fractional area change of total area of the same glaciers over the period 1900-2009 from group 1 and from 24K to 2009 from group 2 (Table 8). ................................................................. 40 Table 11 – A comparison of the topographic characteristics of each set of glaciers. ..................................................................... 42 Table 12 - Area change over different time periods separated by areas greater/less than 0.1 km 2 based on their initial area and by significant and insignificant changes, n is the number of glaciers, FAC is fractional area change. ........................................... 43 Table 13 - Analysis of glaciers with insignificant change. ........................ 46 Table 14 - Overall area change from 1900-2009 summarized using fractional area change values for individual years. ............................... 48 Table 15 - Mount Baker temporal glacier area change data...................... 51 Table 16 - Total and fractional area of all glaciers on Mount Baker. ........... 52 Table 17 - South Cascade Glacier area change from 1900-2009. ................ 53 Table 18 - Mean monthly values of minimum and maximum air temperature (Tmin, Tmax),˚C, Precipitation (Precip), mm, over the time period 1900-2009 derived from PRISM data. ........................... 68 Table 19 - Mann-Kendall (MK) and regression (r 2) results for seasonal and annual temperature and precipitation trends for the time periods listed in the left hand column. ................................ 69 Table 21 - Results of the correlation analysis between glacier area change and climate variables.. ................................................... 72 Table 22 - Results of correlation analysis for the climate analysis divided into two groups for glaciers greater than and less than 0.1km 2. ... 73 iv Table 23 - Results of correlation analysis for glacier area change and topographic variables. .................................................... 74 Table 24 - Results of correlation analysis for the topographic analysis divided into two groups for glaciers greater than and less than 0.1 km 2. ..................................................................... 76 Table 25 - Results of the multiple regression analysis. ........................... 78 Table 26 – Precipitation (P) and Temperature (T) for seasonal and annual averages corresponding with periods of glacier area change for the entire North Cascades.. ............................................
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