A comparative analysis of glacier retreat in the Tropical Andes using remote sensing

Abstract

In this research paper, we analysed the behaviour of Tropical Andean glaciers in a changing climate. We used multi-source satellite images as well as meteorological datasets to achieve this objective. Representative glaciers in four different climatic zones, namely the inner tropics, northern wet outer tropics, southern wet outer tropics and dry outer tropics, were considered in this study. Changes in annual maximum snowline during 1985 - 2015 and also the decadal changes in the area between 1975 and 2015 of these glaciers were calculated. Furthermore, we analysed the rate of glacier retreat during the occurrence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. It is observed that the glaciers in both the inner and outer tropics underwent retreat during the study period and most of this retreat occurred during 1975 - 1997 which is parallel with the so-called Pacific shift. Exceptional variations in snowline altitude were observed when an El Niño event occurs during the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. No significant signals of the recent hiatus in global warming were observed, except in the dry outer tropics which are situated near the subtropical region.