Preliminary Analysis On Glacier Changes Characteristics Of The Youyi Peak Area In The Altai Mountains In Xinjiang

In the background of global warming, the climate change is one of the greatest concerns.Glaciers are products of climate change and the accumulation and ablation of glaciersaffected by climate change. Therefore glacier change is the result of climate change-drivenand indicative of the climate change. Nearly half a century, glaciers retreat strongly becauseof global temperatures increasing. With the natural conditions in the high altitude mountainharsh, the dynamic monitoring of glacier changes in the terrain factors limit is restricted.Before the1950s, the glacier inventory based on field work topographic maps and aerialphotographs to extract the glacier property parameter in the study of the glacier change,which elapses time, labor-intensive and low effective. The remote sensing used to study thenature, characteristics of the glaciers since1970s and to monitor the dynamic changes of theglaciers has become one of the most important means. In recent years the development andapplication of3S’s technology is popular for the study of the glacier change and it iseffective technical means and access to data. The glaciers’ study of Xinjiang has been largelyconcentrated in the Tianshan Mountains, and the glaciers in Altai Mountains lie to thehighest latitude distribution of China, the quantity small and smaller size. The glaciers arelocated in the Sino-Russian-Mongolian border and inaccessible, and it is difficult toimplement the regular observations on the glaciers. Therefore, the glaciers’ study in the AltaiMountains is a little. In order to further understand the glacier change of the Altai Mountains,the application of remote sensing data to investigate the glacier resources of Altai Mountainsbecomes the first choice, which is of practical significance to understand the status quo in theglaciers of the region and the changes over the past few decades. The glaciers of the YouyiPeak area are accounted for more than half of the total number of glacier in Altai Mountainsand so it is the glaciers of the Youyi Peak for the study.The paper selected the Youyi Peak in the Altai Mountains as research district, thetopographic map was based on the aerial photographs of1959and the ASTER image ofAugust,2008, according to geographic information system, take the Altai Mountains ofGlacier attribute information extraction as the research content and carry out with fieldinvestigation, get the glacier changes characteristics of the study area, and analyze theglacier change of the Youyi Peak in the Altai Mountains from1959to2008. In remotesensing image processing, contrast the characteristics of non-supervised classification and supervised classification, and in the process of digitizing glacier the glacier inventory isreferenced; analyse the characteristics of glacier resources change in the Youyi Peak in thebackground of global warming, and compare with other regional glacier changes in westernChina.The results showed that226glaciers of the investigated glaciers in the global warminghave reduced by32.5%and annually lost about1.5km2and disappeared63which are lessthan1km2, of which61glaciers’ area is less than0.5km2. The glaciers retreated by253mat a rate of18.3%, of which the southern slope of the glacier retreated433m and the averageannual retreat of8.8m, while the northern slope of the glacial retreated244m, the averageannual retreat of5.0m. All of the glaciers in study area retreated strong. With the retreat ofglaciers, big glaciers to smaller glaciers, and the little glaciers tend to disappear which aremore sensitive than larger glacier to the response to the climate change. Summer temperatureand annual precipitation is the fundamental factors in the cause of glacier change, andsummer tempetature determines the glacicers’ ablation, the annual precipitation influencesaccumulation. Winter precipitation in the study area increases but the glaciers remains severeablation, the main reason is because summer warming causes strong glacier ablation, andwinter accumulation is not sufficient to compensate for the loss of material balance causedby rising temperature, which accelerate the glacier retreat. Moreover the average annualprecipitation is less in the study area and no significant increase, and warming induces thereduction of the glacial accumulation area, so that the glacier mass balance income decreases,but the spending on the rise, which makes further exacerbating the retreat of glaciers, so theglacial retreat in the Youyi Peak is mainly due to the climate warming caused. Comparedwith the two basins of the Youyi Peak Area including Habahe and Burqin River, the resultsindicate that the number of Habahe disappearance of glaciers is less than the Burqin River,and the average annual change rate greater than the basin of Burqin River, which displaysthat the glaciers in tht basin of Habahe change dramatically in the case of climate warming.At the same time, compared with the changes with other western regional glaciers, and theirreasons for the differences maybe: Glaciers in Youyi Peak Area have the same changestrends with other regions in western China, these are: reducing of the number of articles, areais becoming smaller. Glacial rate of change in the study area is slightly bigger than that inother regions in western China and more sensitive to climate change.