First results from a satellite and photo-based glacier inventory for British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
British Columbia (BC) contains over 28,000 km 2 of glacierized terrain, but any comprehensive glacier inventory is lacking. One primary objective of the Western Canadian Cryospheric Network is to develop former and present extents of glacier cover for this region. In this study we utilize aerial photographs and satellite imagery to calculate changes in glacier cover for four regions in BC over three time periods: the southern Coast Mountains (1984, 2000, 2004); the northern Coast Mountains (1982, 2000, 2003); the Selkirk-Columbia Mountains (1986, 2000, 2006) and the northern Rocky Mountains (1986, 2001, 2006). We select these regions to represent glaciers in northern and southern locations and those that are influenced by maritime and continental climates. Glacier extent declined by 725 km 2 for the 5600 km 2 of mapped glaciers over the last two decades, and this retreat corresponds to an average annual loss of ca. 0.6 % a-1. Glaciers retreated most in the two southern regions: the southern Coast Mountains and the Selkirk-Columbia Mountains where glaciers lost 10.33% and 18.09% of their areas respectively since the 1980s. We observe no detectable change in glacier extent after 2000 except in the northern Rocky Mountains where the annual rate nearly doubled (0.32 to 0.58 % a -1). We hypothesize that this increase is real and may be related to the influence of arctic air masses in the northeast portion of our study area.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUFM.C12A..08M
- Keywords:
-
- 0720 Glaciers;
- 1621 Cryospheric change (0776);
- 1640 Remote sensing (1855)