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Mapping glacier extents from changes in Earth’s surface elevation
Glaciers are shrinking globally, losing both thickness and surface area. Outlining glaciers is instrumental to robust observational and modelling efforts, but is complex due to the fast retreat. This project aims at assessing time-varying positions from recent elevation change observations.
Recent efforts in inventorying all glaciers on Earth have led to multiple advances. These include the quantification of recent glacier mass loss, the estimation of remaining glacier ice, or the improvement of model projections for future glacier changes. However, current glacier inventories are constrained to a few optical or radar satellite acquisitions, meaning that they all refer to individual points in time. As a result, existing inventories are often temporarily inconsistent, making it difficult to compare glacier changes between regions, and limiting the information of changes over time.
Recent efforts in inventorying all glaciers on Earth have led to multiple advances. These include the quantification of recent glacier mass loss, the estimation of remaining glacier ice, or the improvement of model projections for future glacier changes. However, current glacier inventories are constrained to a few optical or radar satellite acquisitions, meaning that they all refer to individual points in time. As a result, existing inventories are often temporarily inconsistent, making it difficult to compare glacier changes between regions, and limiting the information of changes over time.
The goal of this thesis is to estimate glacier changes for the period between 2000 to 2020 by using measured glacier surface elevation changes. Due to their imbalance with climate, glaciers are losing most of their ice thickness at the lower elevations. This thinning is the factor contributing most largely to their change in surface area, while upper elevations remain generally more stable. Those changes at lower elevations can be well-observed at large-scales by surface elevation data, and combining them with existing glacier outlines thus holds the potential to derive time-varying outlines. The study will develop and apply such a method to selected glaciers in the Alps, where multiple outlines derived at different epochs are available for validation. The local application could then be extended to an entire region (e.g. Alaska) or to all glacierized regions on Earth, thus providing essential information about recent glacier changes.
The goal of this thesis is to estimate glacier changes for the period between 2000 to 2020 by using measured glacier surface elevation changes. Due to their imbalance with climate, glaciers are losing most of their ice thickness at the lower elevations. This thinning is the factor contributing most largely to their change in surface area, while upper elevations remain generally more stable. Those changes at lower elevations can be well-observed at large-scales by surface elevation data, and combining them with existing glacier outlines thus holds the potential to derive time-varying outlines. The study will develop and apply such a method to selected glaciers in the Alps, where multiple outlines derived at different epochs are available for validation. The local application could then be extended to an entire region (e.g. Alaska) or to all glacierized regions on Earth, thus providing essential information about recent glacier changes.
For further information please contact Romain Hugonnet (rhugonnet@ethz.ch) or Prof. Daniel Farinotti (daniel.farinotti@ethz.ch).
For further information please contact Romain Hugonnet (rhugonnet@ethz.ch) or Prof. Daniel Farinotti (daniel.farinotti@ethz.ch).