The Cryosphere
www.the-cryosphere.net
1994-0416
1994-0424
3
2
2009
10.5194/tc-3-205-2009
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/3/205/2009/
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/3/205/2009/tc-3-205-2009.html
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/3/205/2009/tc-3-205-2009.pdf
205
215
2009-10-20
Quantifying changes and trends in glacier area and volume in the Austrian Ötztal Alps (1969-1997-2006)
J. Abermann
jakob.abermann@uibk.ac.at
A. Lambrecht
A. Fischer
M. Kuhn
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Commission for Geophysical Research, Vienna, Austria
Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
In this study we apply a simple and reliable method to derive recent changes
in glacier area and volume by taking advantage of high resolution LIDAR
(light detection and ranging) DEMs (digital elevation models) from the year
2006. Together with two existing glacier inventories (1969 and 1997) the new
dataset enables us to quantify area and volume changes over the past
37 years at three dates. This has been done for 81 glaciers (116 km<sup>2</sup>)
in the Ötztal Alps which accounts for almost one third of Austria's
glacier extent. Glacier area and volume have reduced drastically with
significant differences within the individual size classes. Between 1997 and
2006 an overall area loss of 10.5 km<sup>2</sup> or 8.2% occurred. Volume has
reduced by 1.0 km<sup>3</sup> which accounts for a mean thickness change of
−8.2 m. The availability of three comparable inventories allows a
comprehensive size and altitude dependent analysis of glacier changes but
lacks a high temporal resolution. For the comparison of rates of changes
between the two different periods (1969 to 1997 with 1997 to 2006) we propose
two approaches in this study: a) to estimate mean overall rates of changes
(including a period of advance) and b) to extract periods of net-retreat by
using additional information (length change and mass balance measurements).
Analysis of the resulting acceleration factors reveals that the retreat of
volume and mean thickness changes has accelerated significantly more than
that of area changes.
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