Remote Sensing Applications for the Bering Glacier, Alaska
Abstract
Satellite remote sensing is an invaluable tool to monitor and characterize the Bering Glacier System. The Bering Glacier is located in coastal, south-central Alaska and is the largest and longest glacier in continental North America, with an area of approximately 5,175 km2, and a length of 190 km. It is also the largest surging glacier in America, having surged at least five times during the twentieth century. The last great surge occurred in 1993- 1995. Bering Glacier alone covers more than 6 percent of the glacier covered area of Alaska and may contain 15- 20 percent of Alaska's total glacier ice. Applications of glacier remote sensing include but are not limited to: mapping extent and features, ice velocities through sequential observations, glacier terminus locations, snow line location, glacier albedo, changes in glacier volume, iceberg surveys and calving rates, hydrographic and water quality parameters in ice marginal lakes, and land cover classification maps. Historical remote sensing images provide a much needed geospatial time record of the dynamic changes Bering Glacier has undergone, including changes due to its surge behavior and response to climate change. Remote sensing images dating back to the early 1990s have been used to map the glacier terminus retreat of approximately five to seven kilometers which has resulted in Vitus Lake increasing in volume approximately 260 percent since 1995 to the current (2006) volume of 9.4 km3 of water. Using elevation data obtained from remote sensing and GPS surface points, we have determined that the glacier elevation has decreased approximately 150 m in elevation at the terminus and 30 m at a position 300 m below the present (2006) equilibrium line (~1,300 m) since 1972. Satellite observations have recorded the upward migration in altitude of the equilibrium line to its present position (slightly > 1,200 m). The decrease in glacier volume, obtained using remote sensing derived elevation data, from 1957 to 2004 is estimated at approximately 104 km3. Remote sensing data has also mapped the sediment rich (rock flower) water flowing into Vitus Lake providing insight into the hydrologic circulation of the Bering Glacier system, showing major glacier discharge from the Abandoned River, Arrowhead Point, and Lamire Bay in the area of Vitus Lake west of Taggland.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUFM.C41A0042L
- Keywords:
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- 0720 Glaciers;
- 0758 Remote sensing;
- 9345 Large bodies of water (e.g.;
- lakes and inland seas) (0746)