Recent Changes of Glacial Lakes in the High Mountain Asia and Its Potential Controlling Factors Analysis

作者：Meimei Zhang, Fang Chen, Hang Zhao, Jinxiao Wang, Ning Wang · 发表于：Remote Sensing · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.3390/rs13183757 · 被引用次数：68 · 研究领域：Cryospheric studies and observations、Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics、Climate change and permafrost

The current glacial lake datasets in the High Mountain Asia (HMA) region still need to be improved because their boundary divisions in the land–water transition zone are not precisely delineate, and also some very small glacial lakes have been lost due to their mixed reflectance with backgrounds. In addition, most studies have only focused on the changes in the area of a glacial lake as a whole, but do not involve the actual changes of per pixel on its boundary and the potential controlling factors. In this research, we produced more accurate and complete maps of glacial lake extent in the HMA in 2008, 2012, and 2016 with consistent time intervals using Landsat satellite images and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing platform, and further studied the formation, distribution, and dynamics of the glacial lakes. In total, 17,016 and 21,249 glacial lakes were detected in 2008 and 2016, respectively, covering an area of 1420.15 ± 232.76 km2 and 1577.38 ± 288.82 km2; the lakes were mainly located at altitudes between 4400 m and 5600 m. The annual areal expansion rate was approximately 1.38% from 2008 to 2016. To explore the cause of the rapid expansion of individual glacial lakes, we investigated their long-term expansion rates by measuring changes in shoreline positions. The results show that glacial lakes are expanding rapidly in areas close to glaciers and had a high expansion rate of larger than 20 m/yr from 2008 to 2016. Glacial lakes in the Himalayas showed the high...