Inventory of nival-glacial geosystems in Lake Baikal area (East Siberia, Russia)

摘要

Glaciers in Lake Baikal Area were plotted on topographic and tourist maps, but often big perennial snow patches were designated as glaciers. A special study of these entities to classify them in one group or another was necessary. Recently published data of remote sensing (satellite images) of high resolution allow distinguishing a variety of snow and ice objects (accurate to 0.5 m). In identifying sustainable nival-glacial formations it was necessary to measure the characteristic parameters of these objects and their boundaries using topographic maps, satellite images, and GPS devices. The GIS project and the database of nival-glacial formations for the quantitative analysis of the accumulated information have been created. The glaciers of mountain ridges of East Siberia significantly reduced in thickness for the last decades, and their abrupt degradation is manifested in the last 5-10 years. The main glaciers of the Barguzinskiy ridge decreases with 0.002 km(2) year(-1) that is comparable with the reduction rate of the glaciers of the Eastern Sayan ridge, but is less than of the representative of the Kodar ridge the Azarovoy glacier.