Abstract
Over the period of more than 30 years the mass balance observations have been carried on the several representative glaciers of the Tien Shan. But these data are not sufficient to explain the asynchronous degradation of the glaciation in different parts of the mountains. Special field observations were undertaken to study asynchronous changes in mass balance. The programme used an imitation model of the mass balance monitoring (Dyurgerov 1988). According to the model the annual values of glacier mass balance bn and equilibrium line altitude ELAn were replaced by the current values of bt and ELAt measured during the ablation season. The imitation model was evaluated on Tuyuksu Glacier in 1987–1989. The results showed that the function bn(ELAn) can be replaced by bt(ELAt) which is nonlinear and can be approximated by the hypsographic curve of the glacier. After these tests the similar measurements were accomplished in summer of 1989 on the Tuyuksu Glacier, Sary-Tor and Glacier No. 1. It was established that the asynchronous changes in mass balance were primarily due to the increase of summer snow accumulation eastward the Tien Shan. The second reason was the difference in the altitudinal position of the glaciers.
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Dyurgerov, M.B., Mikhalenko, V.N., Kunakhovitch, M.G. et al. On the cause of glacier mass balance variations in the Tian Shan Mountains. GeoJournal 33, 311–317 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00812879
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00812879