Map Monday: Glacier's Melt, Lakes Grow

One of my favorite websites is NASA's Earth Observatory. They share images, and stories about the environment and the Earth that come from satellite missions and NASA research. The image of the day from April 26, 2019 (shown above) shows a Landsat 5 image from November 5, 1990 (on the left) - and a Landsat 8 image from November 18, 2018. One of the great things about the Landsat program is that since 1972 Landsat satellites have been capturing images of the Earth. It's an incredible archive.

The article describes some of the changes that are occurring in the Himalaya Mountains, which have been been dramatic in the last 20 years.

The lake sits at the foot of the Kokthang Glacier, on the south side of the Kanchenjunga Massif—the world’s third tallest mountain. In 1988, the lake in India’s Sikkim province measured 800 meters (2,600 feet) in length. By 2017, it was 1600 meters (5,200 feet), according to Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College. “This lake growth is not unusual at all in recent decades in the area,” said Pelto. “Just in that little tiny region, there have been a dozens of new lakes filling formerly glacier filled valleys and fed from melting glaciers.”

Mauri Pelto also contributed to a couple of blogs for the American Geophysical Union where he has been tracking the glacier's retreat and the growth the the lake in "Kokthang Glacier Retreat, Sikkim Himalaya, India Doubles Lake Size." as well as the the increase in the rise in the snowline and increased melt rates on the glacier in "Winter Season Ablation in 2018 Mount Everest Region, Himalaya."

Landsat images from Nov. 17 2017 and Feb. 10 2018 indicate a rise in the snowline, purple dots, on glaciers east of Mount Everest, indicating ablation even in winter from the terminus to the snowline. Rongbuk Glacier=R, East Rongbuk Glacier=ER Far East Rongbuk Glacier=F, Kada Glacier=K, Barun Glacier=B, Imja Glacier=I and Kangshung Glacier=KX.