Glacier characteristics and changes in the Sary-Jaz River Basin (Central Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan) – 1990–2010

Abstract

The water discharge from the heavily glacierized Sary-Jaz River Basin (Eastern Kyrgyzstan) is of high importance for the very arid Tarim Basin located in Xinjiang (north-western China). We investigated glacier changes in the entire Sary-Jaz River Basin, which covers a large part of the Central Tien Shan, for the period from 1990 to 2010 based on Landsat ‘TM’/‘ETM+’data. We found 1310 glaciers (>0.1 km²), which covered 2055 ± 41.1 km² (∼18% of the entire basin) in 1990. The glaciers shrank by 77.1 ± 57.1 km² (3.7 ± 2.7%) until 2010. This is considerably lower than in most other ranges of the Tien Shan. The lowest insignificant area loss (−1.5 ± 2.7%) was found in the eastern part of the basin where the largest glaciers and highest peaks are situated. Debris-covered glaciers shrank significantly less than clean-ice glaciers of comparable size. We also identified a few advancing glaciers which show surge characteristics. Climate data from the Tien Shan weather station (3614 m asl.) close to the study region showed no significant long-term trend.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of China (grant no. 2010DFA34420) and by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, BO 3199/2-1). We are grateful for the additional financial support from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, CAS, Urumqi and the German Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF) within the project Sustainable Management of River Oases along the Tarim River/China (01 LL 0918 B). We also thank Liu Shyiyn, State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science, Lanzhou, and his team as well as Ryskul Usubaliev, Central Asian Institute for Applied Geosciences (CAIAG), Bishkek.