Glacier Variability in the Wind River Range, Wyoming
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16, Issue 10
Abstract
Variability in surface area for 44 glaciers in Wyoming’s Wind River Range was estimated through a comparison of historic aerial photography from 1966 to 2006. The total surface area of the 44 glaciers was estimated to be in 1966 and in 2006, a decrease of 38%. Glacial surface area was also estimated utilizing resampled aerial photography to assess the relationship between area and measurement scale. Aerial photographs were resampled to resolutions of 10 m, 15 m, 22.5 m, and 30 m to represent other satellite image resolutions used for evaluating glacier boundaries. The results show a linear decrease of total glacier area as resolution decreases. When comparing 1-m resolution to the resampled 30-m resolution for 1966 and 2006 photos, an average area difference of 5% was observed. Additionally, the current research was compared to previous research efforts that utilized Landsat imagery to detect glacier area change from 1985 to 2005. We concluded that fine spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery remains the preferred and most accurate source for measuring glacier characteristics.
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Acknowledgments
This research is supported by the University of Wyoming Water Research Program, funded jointly by the USGS, the Wyoming Water Development Commission, and the University of Wyoming. Additional support was provided by the University of Tennessee, the USGS 104B program, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Joint Directed Research and Development program, and the NSF NSFP2C2 AGS-1003393. The writers wish to thank the editor, associate editor, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16 • Issue 10 • October 2011
Pages: 798 - 805
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 14, 2010
Accepted: Jan 12, 2011
Published online: Jul 2, 2011
Published in print: Oct 1, 2011
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