Glaciers recession in the mountains of the former USSR after the maximum of the
"Little Ice Age": Time and scale (Analysis of the new inventory)
Olga Solomina, Inst. Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetny 29,
109017 Moscow, Russia (olga@mikun.msk.su / olga@pkdb.botanik.uni-hohenheim.de)
The new inventory contains the data on the lichenometry of moraines in Caucasus, Pamiro-Alay,
Tien-Shan, Altay and Kamchatka. About 100 glaciers with their moraines are used as the key
areas for the reconstruction of the retreat scale of the glaciers existing under different
climatic and orographic conditions. The distance from the front of the glaciers to the
moraine of LIA Maximum, the altitude of the moraine of LIA Maxium, the altitude of the
beginning of the lateral moraines, the altitude of the medial moraine and corresponding
nunataks are estimated for more than 1000 glaciers by air-borne images.
Glaciers Advances--Time (Lichenometry)
The most part of moraines in all regions under consideration was formed after the middle of
17 century. There were glacier advances in the end of 17--the beginning of 18, the end of
18--the beginning of 19, the middle of 19, the end of 19, the beginning of 20 century. The
maximum of glacier advances over the last millenia occurred in the most part of regions in 17
or 19 century. Only in the Caucasus the moraines of 13 century are situated much lower than
the more recent ones. Unfortunately the low accuracy of moraine dating in some regions does
not allow to correlate the moraine age precisely, but in general it could be suggested that
the main glacier advances were synchronous from Caucasus to Kamchatka over the last hundreds
years. The difference in the set of the stages seems to be rather influenced by the local
conditions, than by regional factors.
Glaciers Retreat--Scale (Air-borne images)
The analysis of air-borne images of the regions mentioned above as well as in Polar Urals,
Central Pamirs, Cherskogo Range, Tchukotka Mountains, Suntar-Khayata Mountains, Koriakskoye
Nagoriye shows that the length of the glaciers decreased everywhere, but the scale of the
decreasing in Caucasus, Pamiro-Alay, Tien-Shan and Altay and Koriakskoye Nagoriye is about
600-800 m, but in the North-Eastern Mountains it is much less--only 130-280 m (depression
of the altitude of the fronts is 120-170 m and 20-50 m respectively).
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