Glacier recession in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia in 1990–2016

ABSTRACT

Relatively little is known about glaciers in the continental climates of North Asia and even less is known about the glaciers of the Mongolian Altai. In an attempt to fill this knowledge gap, we present a new satellite-derived glacier inventory for the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, using the recently launched Landat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2A MSI sensors to monitor glacier change from 1990 to 2016. We examine changes in climatic trends and glacier topomorphological parameters in conjunction with glacier fluctuations to determine governing controls over glacier recession in the Altai Mountains. Our glacier mapping results produced 627 debris-free glaciers with an area of 334.0 ± 42.3 km² as of 2016. These data were made available for download through the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) initiative. A subsample of 206 glaciers that were mapped in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2016 revealed that from 1990 to 2016, glacier area reduced by 43% at 6.4 ± 0.4 km² yr⁻¹. Glacier recession was greatest from 1990 to 2000 at a rate of 10.9 ± 0.8 km² yr⁻¹, followed by 2010–2016 at 4.4 ± 0.3 km² yr⁻¹. Rates of glacier recession were significantly correlated with intrinsic glacier parameters, including mean, minimum and range elevations, mean slope and aspect. Furthermore, climate records indicated the warmest summer temperatures occurred during periods of high glacier recession.

KEYWORDS:

• Altai
• glaciers
• glacier monitoring
• Mongolia
• climate change

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and thoughtful comments. C. Pan, A. Dashtseren and M. Walther carried out fieldwork; C. Pan, A. Pope, A. Dashtseren and M. Syromyatina analyzed the data; C. Pan designed the study and wrote the manuscript with U. Kamp and A. Pope.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Caleb G. Pan is a Systems Ecology PhD student working in the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group at the University of Montana, with a research focus in the application of remote sensing to understand cryospheric processes.

Allen Pope is a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center; his area of research is remote sensing of the global cryosphere, in particular with multispectral satellite data.

Ulrich Kamp is a Professor in Natural Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He has research interests in the cryosphere, environmental change, geomorphology, mountain geography, and natural hazards.

Avirmed Dashtseren is the head of the Division of Permafrost at the Institute of Geography and Geoecology in the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. His main scientific interests are permafrost, seasonally frozen ground, glaciers, and their interaction with climate and ecosystems.

Michael Walther is currently a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Geography and Geoecology in the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. His fields of research focus on climate change, landscape development and Natural Resource Management in Central Asia.

Margarita Syromyatina is a research fellow in the Institute of Earth Sciences at Saint-Petersburg University, Russia. Her research interests are in mountain geosystems, mountain hydrology, climate change, and mountain land use.

Additional information

Funding

C. Pan was supported by the Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC) Student Research Fellowship, American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) Summer Research Fellowship, U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Program, University of Montana Office of Research and Creative Scholarship, and the U.S. Embassy – Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Grants Program. A. Pope was supported by USGS contract G12PC00066.