Abstract
Today, the glaciers and rock glaciers of Turkey occur in three different regions: (1) in the southeastern part of the Taurus Mountain range, (2) along the coastal mountains of the eastern Black Sea region, and (3) on high volcanoes and individual mountain ranges scattered across the Anatolian Plateau. A total of 51 glaciers (including an ice cap, 17 mountain glaciers, and 33 glacierets) and 55 rock glaciers were detected from ASTER imagery acquired between 2002 and 2011 as part of the GLIMS project. Glaciers generally accumulate in the eastern part of the country, between the latitudes of 37°N and 41°N, typically as remnants of older glaciations, and occur at high elevations where climate and topographic factors are favorable to sustain them. The largest single glacier in Turkey is on Mt. Ağri (Ararat), in eastern Turkey and covers an area of 5.66 km2. The longest and best preserved mountain glaciers are located in the Southeastern Taurus Mountains and in the Eastern Black Sea Mountains. Principal among them are İzbirak and Erinç Glaciers in the Buzul Mountains (2.1 and 1.5 km in length, respectively) and Kaçkar I Glacier in the Rize Mountains (0.93 km long). Turkish glaciers have retreated significantly since the beginning of the last century, and the rates of retreat rates calculated from historical observations are consistent with the general warming trend of the past century.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the editors of this book for inviting us to write this chapter. We are also grateful to Jeff Olsenholler for his help during preparation of ASTER imagery, and to Michael P. Bishop and John F. Shroder (University of Nebraska-Omaha) for providing a workplace to study these glaciers. ASTER data courtesy of NASA/GSFC/METI/Japan Space Systems, the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, and the GLIMS project.
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Sarıkaya, M.A., Tekeli, A.E. (2014). Satellite Inventory of Glaciers in Turkey. In: Kargel, J., Leonard, G., Bishop, M., Kääb, A., Raup, B. (eds) Global Land Ice Measurements from Space. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79818-7_21
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