Journal
Journal of Glaciology
ISSN
0022-1430
1727-5652
Open Access
gold
Volume
62
Start page
847
End page
860
For the Andes Cordillera, where observed mass-balance records are sparse, long-term glacier velocity measurements potentially represent a useful tool for assessing glacier health. Utilising manual and automatic feature-tracking techniques applied to Corona, Landsat and ASTER satellite imagery, this paper presents surface velocity fluctuations for Glaciar Universidad between 1967 and 1969, and 1985 and 2015, the longest such time series available for the Andes Cordillera, outside Patagonia. This time series reveals an increase in the surface velocities of the main glacier trunk between 1967 and 1987 (similar to 90%) followed by a deceleration between 1987 and 2015 (similar to 80%), with ice velocities observed between 2014 and 2015 possibly representing a 48 a low. In response to the surface velocity fluctuations, the glacier front advanced between 1985 and 1992 (cumulative change of 137 +/- 14 m), and again to a lesser magnitude during the 1996-98 and 2004-08 periods. Although having exhibited possible surge behaviour during the 1940s, the synchrony of the glacier changes presented for Glaciar Universidad with those reported for nearby glaciers, suggests that this glacier is responding to climatic trends. If the above scenario is true, the results indicate a general pattern of increasingly negative glacier mass-balance conditions since the late 1980s.
Name
surface-velocity-fluctuations-for-glaciar-universidad-central-chile-between-1967-and-2015.pdf
Size
1.01 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):e75f0ebbd6059a038050a2fbf8fe3122
Attribution 4.0 International