Volume Changes of North American Glaciers by Repeat Airborne Profiling

这个项目的主要目的是让首席研究员确定阿拉斯加、加拿大西北部和华盛顿一些地区约70个有代表性的冰川目前的质量平衡和体积变化，平均超过5年。 这一地区是世界上除极地地区以外最大的冰川地区之一，但在数千个冰川中，只有五到六个冰川受到定期监测，并有长期记录。 这些平衡将通过重复冰川上的基线海拔剖面来确定。 将从冰川对海平面上升的影响的角度对物质平衡进行审查，以确定气候变化的区域趋势和任何可能的时间趋势。 从历史上看，冰川和冰盖的质量平衡很难测量。 由于复杂的山脉屏障和各种各样的气候状况，这一困难对山地冰川来说尤其如此。 此外，卫星雷达测高尚未被用于成功测量这些冰川的质量平衡，因为它们的表面坡度大而不规则，面积相对较小。 该项目的一个重要目标是，通过在该项目的四年中对选定的冰川重复制作剖面图，确定空中剖面图测量年度质量平衡的适用性和准确性。

AbstractOPP-9876421HarrisonEchelmeyerThe main objective of this project is for the Principal Investigator to determine the present mass balance and volume changes, averaged over five years, of about seventy representative glaciers in Alaska, northwestern Canada, and a few in Washington. This area is one of the largest glaciated regions in the world outside the polar regions, but only five to six glaciers out of thousands have been regularly monitored and have long-term records. These balances will be determined by repeating the baseline elevation profiles on the glaciers. The mass balances will be examined in terms of the contribution of the glaciers to sea level rise to determine regional trends in climate change and any possible temporal trends. Historically, mass balances of glaciers and ice sheets are very difficult to measure. This difficulty is particularly true for mountain glaciers because of the complex mountain barriers and the wide variety of climate regimes. Furthermore, satellite rader altimetry has not been used to successfully measure the mass balance of these glaciers because of their large and irregular surface slopes and relatively small areas. An important objective of this project will be to determine the applicability and accuracy of airborne profiling to measure the annual mass balances by making repeated profiles on selected glaciers over the four years of this project.