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Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World--State of the Earth's

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Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World--State of the Earth's Ice Cores, High-Mountain Glaciers, and Climate By LONNIE G. THOMPSON5 Introduction The near-global retreat of high-mountain glaciers and the shrinkage of ice fields and ice caps and retreat of their associated outlet glaciers are perhaps the most visible evidence for 20th-century climate change and the recent increase in the globally averaged near-surface temperatures of the Earth’s surface. The loss of high-mountain glaciers—including ice fields, ice caps, and other glaciers—not only diminishes regional water supplies but also destroys the long, scientifically valuable, and often detailed climatic histories that are unavailable from any other terrestrial or marine record. The question arises as to the significance of 20th-century retreat of glaciers within a much longer perspective. In a few cases, the paleoclimate histories contained within ice cores from these shrinking ice fields and ice caps can provide this critical temporal context. The ongoing global-scale rapid retreat of mountain glaciers threatens freshwater supplies in many of the world’s most populous regions while at the same time contributing to the rise in global sea level. Innovations in lightweight drilling technology have enabled paleoclimatic research on ice cores to expand from the polar regions (for example, ice cores from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets) to ice fields and ice caps in many of the highest mountains on Earth. During the last few decades, much effort has been focused on retrieving ice cores from glaciers in subpolar regions, such as western Canada and eastern Alaska; from the mid-latitudes, such as the Rocky Mountains and the Alps; and from tropical mountains in Africa, South America, and China. Unlike climate records from polar ice cores, those from lower latitude high-mountain glaciers—including ice caps, ice fields, and other types of glaciers—present information necessary for studying climatic processes in areas where human activities are concentrated, especially in the tropics and subtropics, where 70 percent of the world’s population lives. During the past 100 years, changes in global and regional-scale climates and environmental changes to which human beings are vulnerable have accelerated. These changes will increasingly affect us in the current century and in future centuries. The following overview of the archives of these past changes as held in high-mountain glaciers on millennial to decadal time scales includes a review of the recent, global-scale retreat of these high-mountain glaciers under present climate conditions. The significance of this retreat for the longer term perspec- tive, which can be inferred only from paleoclimate records contained in ice cores, is also discussed. Geographic Locations of Mountains Where Glacier Ice Cores Have Been Obtained The sites where many of the high-altitude glacier ice cores have been retrieved are shown in figure 37 and listed in table 10. Among the earliest efforts to retrieve climate records from high-mountain glaciers were research 5 Byrd Polar Research Center, and Department of Geological Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. STATE OF THE EARTH’S CRYOSPHERE—GLACIERS A157 Figure 37.—Geographic locations of sites where ice cores have been obtained by the ice-core paleoclimate re- search group at the Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University. PARCA, Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment. programs from 1974 to 1979, which involved surface sampling on the Quelccaya Ice Cap (5,670 m above sea level [asl]; lat 13°56' S., long 70°50' W.) in southern Perú. (See section on Quelccaya Ice Cap by Stefan Hastenrath in Chapter 1386–I, “Glaciers of South America,” p. I64–I65, of this series (Morales-Arnao, 1998)). The results from this preliminary research by the Institute of Polar Studies (now the Byrd Polar Research Center, or BPRC) at The Ohio State University paved the way for the first tropical high-altitude, deep-drilling program on the Quelccaya Ice Cap in 1983, which yielded a 1,500- year climate record. Meanwhile, in western Canada in 1980, a 103-m ice core was drilled on Mount Logan (5,340 m asl; lat 60°35' N., long 140°35' W.) by Canada’s National Hydrology Research Laboratory. The record from this core extends back to A.D. 1736. The ice caps on both mountains have been redrilled recently, Mount Logan in 2002 and Quelccaya Ice Cap in 2003. During the intervening decades high-mountain ice-core research has expanded signifi- cantly throughout the world, with programs successfully completed on the Tibetan Plateau, the Himalaya, the Cordillera Blanca of northern Perú, Bolivia, East Africa, the Swiss and Italian Alps, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In 2002, the BPRC paleoclimate ice-core group succeeded in retrieving the deepest ice cores ever recorded (460 m) from the col between Mount Bona (5,008 m asl) and Mount Churchill (4,770 m asl) in the St. Elias Mountains of southeastern Alaska. (See descriptions of glaciers in this mountain range in Chapter 1386–K, “Glaciers of Alaska,” of this series (Molnia, 2008). A158 SATELLITE IMAGE ATLAS OF GLACIERS OF THE WORLD TTableable 110.0.—A selection of sites of high-mountainhigh-mountain glaciersglaciers from whichwhich research organizationsorganizations have obtaineobtainedd ice cores since 198since 19800 [NA, time series for this ice core is not yet available; place-name in italics indicates that it is informal usausagege ((unapproved)unapproved)]] AbbreviationsAbbreviations forfor thethe organizations: PPSI,SI, Paul Scherrer Institut (Switzerland)(Switzerland) IRD, Institut de Recherche pourpour le DéveloppementDéveloppement (France(France)) BPRC, Byrd Polar Research Center ((previouslypreviously called the Institute ooff LGGE, LaboratoireLaboratoire dede GlaciologieGlaciologie et GéophysiqueGéophysique dede l’Environnementl’Environnement PPolarolar Studies), The Ohio State University (USA(USA)) ((France)France) NHRC, National HydrologyHydrology Research Centre (Canada)(Canada) IGRAS, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science (Russia(Russia)) NGP, National Glaciology Programme (Canada)(Canada) IFU, Institut für UmweltphysikUmweltphysik (Germany)(Germany) AAINA,INA, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary (Canada) UNIBE, Universität Bern (Switzerland)(Switzerland) NIPR, National Institute of Polar Research (Japan)(Japan) LIICRE, Key LaboratoryLaboratory ofof Ice Core andand ColdCold Regions Environment IQCS, Institute for Quaternary and Climate Studies ((nownow called the CCI, ((China)China) Climate Change InstituteInstitute),), University of Maine (USA)(USA) UNH, Institute forfor thethe StudyStudy ofof Earth,Earth, Oceans, anandd Space, University ooff USGS, U. S. Geological Survey (USA(USA)) New HampshireHampshire (USA(USA)) EElevationlevation LLengthength ooff Name ofof glacierizedglacierized mountain or glacier,glacier, LocationLocation LeaLeadingding LLengthength ooff core ((metersmeters above YYearear ddrilledrilled rrecordecord aandnd state or countrcountryy ((latitudelatitude and lonlongitude)gitude) ororganizationganization ((meters)meters) sea levellevel)) ((years)years) Mount Bona/Mount ChurchillChurchill,, Alaska 61°2424´N.´N. 114141°4242´W.´W. 4,4,420420 2002 BPR BPRCC 460 NA Mount LoLogan,gan, CanadaCanada 60°3535´N.´N. 141400°3535´W.´W. 55,340,340 19 198080 NHRCNHRC,, 110303 225225 2002 NNGP,GP, AINAAINA,, 190 NA NIPR, 222020 NA IIQCS,QCS, UNH 334545 NA EEclipseclipse Dome, CanadaCanada 60°51´N.51´N. 131399°4747´W.´W. 3,3,017017 199 19966 UN UNHH 1 16060 NA Fremont GGlaciers,laciers, WyominWyomingg 4433°0909N.N. 101099°3737´W.´W. 4,4,100100 1 1991991 USGS 16 1600 227575 11998998 550,0, 116060 NA Gora Belukha, Kazakhstan/RussiaKazakhstan/Russia 49°448´N.8´N. 8866°3434´E.´E. 4,04,06262 2 2001001 PS PSI,I, UNIBE 140140 200+ FiescFiescherhorner,herhorner, SwitzerSwitzerlandland 46°3232´N.´N. 8°0202´E.´E. 33,880,880 1 1988988 PSPSI,I, UNIBE 30 30 42 2002 150 CoColl dduu Dôme,Dôme, FranceFrance 45°550´N.0´N. 6°550´0´E. 4,4,250250 1 1994994 LGGE LGGE,, IFIFUU 139139 7 755 Mont BBlanc,lanc, France 45°445´N.5´N. 6°5050´E.´E. 4,804,8077 1 1994994 LGG LGGEE 1 14040 200 200++ Djantugan, RussiRussiaa 43°112´N.2´N. 42°446´E.6´E. 3,3,600600 1 1983983 I IGRASGRAS 93 9357 57 GreGregoriev,goriev, KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan 41°58´N.58´N. 7777°5555´E.´E. 4,4,660660 19911991 IGIGRAS,RAS, BPR BPRCC 20, 1166 53 20012001 IIGRASGRAS 21.21.55 NA 2003 IIGRASGRAS 2222 NA DunDundede ice cap,cap, CChinahina 38°006´N.6´N. 96°2424´E.´E. 5,5,325325 19 198787 BPRC BPRC,, LIICRE 183183 10,000+10,000+ Malan ice cap,cap, ChinChinaa 35°5050´N.´N. 9900°4040´E.´E. 66,056,056 1999 L LIICREIICRE 102 112+112+ GuGuliyaliya ice cap, CChinahina 35°1717´N.´N. 8811°2929´E.´E. 66,200,200 1 1992992 BPR BPRC,C, LIILIICRECRE 302 110,000+110,000+ Purugangri ice cap, CChinahina 33°5555´N.´N. 8899°005´W.5´W. 6,6,000000 2000 BPRC BPRC,, LIICRE 208 NA Dasuopu glacier,glacier, CChinahina 28°2323´N.´N. 8855°4343´E.´E. 77,200,200 1 1996996 BPRC BPRC,, LIICRE 162 1,000+1,000+ Qomolangma, NepalNepal/China/China 27°5959´N.´N. 8866°5555´E.´E. 6,6,500500 1 1998998 UNH UNH,, LIICRLIICREE 80 80 15 1544 KiKilimanjarolimanjaro ice fifields,elds, Tanzani Tanzaniaa 3°0404´S.´S. 3377°2121´E.´E. 5,5,895895 2000 BPR BPRCC 5252 11, 11,700700 NevaNevadodo HuascaránHuascarán,, Perú 9°0606´S.´S. 77°336´W.6´W. 6,6,050050 1 1993993 BPR BPRCC 166 19 19,000,000 Quelccaya ice cacapp, PPerúerú 1133°556´S.6´S. 70°550´W.0´W. 5,5,670670 1 1983983 BPRBPRCC 1 155,55, 161644 1,1,500500 2003 16168,8, 129 11,800,800 NNevadoevado Illimani, BoliviBoliviaa 16°3737´S.´S. 6677°4747´W.´W. 66,350,350 1 1999999 I IRD,RD, PSIPSI 1 137,37, 113939 1 18,0008,000 NevaNevadodo Sajama, BoBolivialivia 18°006´S.6´S. 6688°5353´W.´W.
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