Reconstructed Aneto glacier surfaces from historic aerial image photogrammetry (1981) and remote sensing techniques (2020, 2021, 2022)

  1. Vidaller, Ixeia 1
  2. Izagirre, Eñaut 2
  3. del Río, Luis Mariano 3
  4. Alonso-González, Esteban 4
  5. Rojas-Heredia, Francisco 1
  6. Serrano, Enrique 5
  7. Moreno, Ana 1
  8. López-Moreno, Juan Ignacio 1
  9. Revuelto, Jesús 1
  1. 1 Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC)
  2. 2 Department of Geography, Prehistory and Archaeology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
  3. 3 Department of Applied Physics, Escuela Politécnica Superior de Cáceres, University of Extremadura
  4. 4 Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère, Université de Toulouse,CNRS/CNES/IRD/INRA/UPS
  5. 5 Department of Geography, GIR PANGEA, University of Valladolid
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Publisher: Zenodo

Year of publication: 2022

Type: Dataset

DOI: 10.5281/ZENODO.7472185 GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

Abstract

The Aneto Glacier, is the largest glacier in the Pyrenees. Its shrinkage and wastage have been continuous in recent decades, and there are signs of accelerated melting in recent years. In this study, changes in the surface and ice thickness of the Aneto Glacier from 1981 to 2022 are investigated using historical aerial imagery, airborne LiDAR point clouds, and UAV imagery. A GPR survey conducted in 2020, combined with data from photogrammetric analyses, allowed us to reconstruct the current ice thickness and also the existing ice distribution in 1981 and 2011. Over the last 41 years, the total glaciated area has shrunk by 64.7% and the ice thickness has decreased, on average, by 30.5 m. The mean remaining ice thickness in autumn 2022 was 11.9 m, as against the mean thicknesses of 32.9 m, 19.2 m reconstructed for 1981 and 2011 and 15.0 m observed in 2020 respectively. The results demonstrate the critical situation of the glacier, with an imminent segmentation into two smaller ice bodies and no evidence of an accumulation zone. We also found that the occurrence of an extremely hot and dry year, as observed in the 2021–2022 season, leads to a drastic degradation of the glacier, posing a high risk to the persistence of the Aneto Glacier, a situation that could extend to the rest of the Pyrenean glaciers in a relatively short time.