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Glacier Recession in Altay Mountains after the LIA Maximum

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Submitted:

01 January 2022

Posted:

04 January 2022

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Abstract
The recent glaciation of the southern part of the Altai is estimated (1256 glaciers with the total area of 559.15±31.13 km2), the area of the glaciers of the whole Altai mountains is evaluated by 1096.55 km2. In the southern part of Altai 2276 glaciers with the total area of 1348.43±56.16 km2 were reconstructed, the first estimate of the LIA glacial area for the whole Altai mountain system is given (2288.04 km2). Since the LIA the glaciers decrease by 59% in the southern part of Altai and by 47.9% for the whole Altai. The ELA in the southern part of Altai increased averagely by 106 m. The higher changes of ELA in relatively humid areas is probably caused by decrease of precipitation. Glaciers of Tavan Bogd glacial center degraded with higher rates after 1968 relative to the interval between 1850-1968. One of the intervals of the fastest shrinkage of the glaciers in 2000-2010 was caused by unfavorable for the glaciers dry and warm interval 1989-2004. However, the fast decrease of the glaciers in 2000-2010 was mainly caused by the shrinkage or disappearance of the smaller glaciers, large valley glaciers started fast retreat after 2010.
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Subject: Environmental and Earth Sciences  -   Environmental Science
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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