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Combined influence of PDO and ENSO on northern Andean glaciers: a case study on the Cotopaxi ice-covered volcano, Ecuador

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Abstract

This paper describes the application of remote sensing in monitoring the fluctuations in one of the mountain glaciers in the Ecuadorean Andes during the past few decades using ASTER, EO-1 ALI, Landsat MSS, TM and ETM + images. Satellite images were used to calculate the snow line altitudes (SLAs) during the period 1979–2013. Cotopaxi ice covered volcano was studied as representative of Ecuadorian glaciers in the eastern cordillera. Precipitation and air temperature data from various gauging stations within the range of 30 km from the study site and monthly discharge and water level data from a gauging station were also utilized in this study. Anomalies in precipitation and temperature were found to be slightly different in the Cotopaxi region compared to nearby Antizana in the same cordillera and Chimborazo region in the western cordillera. An attempt to correlate the El Niño—southern oscillation phenomenon with the glacier fluctuations in Ecuadorian Andes was done successfully. Cold and warm regimes of Pacific Decadal Oscillation is also considered. The calculated glacier fluctuations obtained were similar to that performed on the nearby Antizana 15 in the eastern cordillera during 1995–2002. Precipitation and temperature anomalies were similar with Antizana 15. It is evident from the research that SLAs were highly fluctuated between the period of occurrence of El Niño and La Niña events. It is also seen that the glacier fluctuations show a negative mass balance trend in during the warm regime of Pacific Decadal Oscillation during the past three decades. Glaciated areas were advanced during the La Nina events in the cold regime of PDO during 1998–2002.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge FAPERGS (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul), Brazil, for providing financial support and INAMHI (Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia e Hidrologia), Ecuador, for providing meteorologicl and hydrological data. We would like to thank Dr. Jefferson Cardia Simões, Centro Polar e Climático (CPC), UFRGS for providing infrastructure and software facilities. The first author acknowledges Ms. Geana Veiga Aurelio for her help with statistical data analysis.

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  1. Centro Estadual de Pesquisas em Sensoriamento Remoto e Meteorologia (CEPSRM), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Campus do Vale, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, CEP, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Brazil

    Bijeesh Kozhikkodan Veettil, Ulisses Franz Bremer & Sergio Florencio de Souza

  2. Centro Polar e Climático, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Campus do Vale, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, CEP, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Brazil

    Bijeesh Kozhikkodan Veettil, Éder Leandro Bayer Maier & Ulisses Franz Bremer

  3. Institute of Geosciences, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Campus do Vale, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, CEP, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Brazil

    Éder Leandro Bayer Maier, Ulisses Franz Bremer & Sergio Florencio de Souza

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  1. Bijeesh Kozhikkodan Veettil
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Correspondence to Bijeesh Kozhikkodan Veettil.

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Veettil, B.K., Leandro Bayer Maier, É., Bremer, U.F. et al. Combined influence of PDO and ENSO on northern Andean glaciers: a case study on the Cotopaxi ice-covered volcano, Ecuador. Clim Dyn 43, 3439–3448 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2114-8

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