Change of Area and ELA in the Glacier Systems of the NE Asia Defined by Sattellite Imegery
Ananicheva, Maria; Ananicheva, Maria; Ananicheva, Maria
Institute of geography RAS, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

The paper compares remotely sensed glacier inventories of the Byrranga, Suntar-Khayata, and Chersky ranges (2003), Koryak Highland and Chukotka mountains (2008) with data from the Catalogue of Glaciers of the USSR (1945-1985). The new region - Orulgan Range ( part of Verkhoyanskt Range is studied by ASTER, World View-2 imagery. We analysed changes in glacier area since the USSR Glacier Inventory, which was primarily based on areal photos and satellite imagery. Overall the glacierization of the Chersky Range (1970-2003), Suntar-Khayata (1945-2003), Byrranga (1967-2003), Koryak Highland (1950-2003) and Meynypilginsky Range (1984-2008)reduced by about 30,20,17,60 (debatable value) and 25 % respectively.
Construction of spatial patterns (maps) of current ELA for 3 different by climate mountain regions – the Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Chersky Range, and Meynypilgynsky Range ( North Far East), showed that despite of retreat of the glaciers, the mean ELA change for the first studied region is not large compared with the data from the Glacier Inventory ( 100m ), and significant for the second (up to 200 m), and third (100-150 m) that can be explained mostly by precipitation patterns change.