Landsat-based inventory of glaciers in western Canada, 1985–2005
Tobias Bolch and Brian Menounos and Roger Wheate

Type: Paper
Tags: Image classification

title = "Landsat-based inventory of glaciers in western Canada, 1985–2005 ",
journal = "Remote Sensing of Environment ",
volume = "114",
number = "1",
pages = "127 - 137",
year = "2010",
note = "",
issn = "0034-4257",
doi = "http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2009.08.015",
url = "http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425709002661",
author = "Tobias Bolch and Brian Menounos and Roger Wheate",
keywords = "Glacier inventory",
keywords = "Glacier recession",
keywords = "Landsat TM",
keywords = "Western Canada",
keywords = "Scaling method",
keywords = "Band ratio",
keywords = "Image classification ",
abstract = "We report on a glacier inventory for the Canadian Cordillera south of 60°N, across the two western provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, containing ~ 30,000 km2 of glacierized terrain. Our semi-automated method extracted glacier extents from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) scenes for 2005 and 2000 using a band ratio (TM3/TM5). We compared these extents with glacier cover for the mid-1980s from high-altitude, aerial photography for British Columbia and from Landsat \{TM\} imagery for Alberta. A 25 m digital elevation model (DEM) helped to identify debris-covered ice and to split the glaciers into their respective drainage basins. The estimated mapping errors are 3–4% and arise primarily from seasonal snow cover. Glaciers in British Columbia and Alberta respectively lost − 10.8 ± 3.8% and − 25.4% ± 4.1% of their area over the period 1985–2005. The region-wide annual shrinkage rate of − 0.55% a− 1 is comparable to rates reported for other mountain ranges in the late twentieth century. Least glacierized mountain ranges with smaller glaciers lost the largest fraction of ice cover: the highest relative ice loss in British Columbia (− 24.0 ± 4.6%) occurred in the northern Interior Ranges, while glaciers in the northern Coast Mountains declined least (− 7.7 ± 3.4%). "