Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Pacific Northwest CESU

archived

The USGS, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK) is offering a funding opportunity is to assess the visible signs of changing mountain landscapes due to mountains importance in freshwater to people and sustained water release throughout the summer which is essential for ecosystem processes. This research is to assess changes from as many glaciers and permanent snow bodies in order to provide a statistically meaningful assessment across the American West for determining glacier response to climate change and impact on runoff. In order to complete this assessment, will acquire historic data of glacier extent and volumes from all available source (historic maps, aerial and ground-based photos, and prior reports). In addition, will commission and map current glacier extent based on remote sensing and aerial photograph surveys to establish a modern ¿baseline¿. Because of the sporadic nature of historical photography, including those to construct USGS maps, this will be a requirement in order to establish a baseline set of photographs taken over a period of a few years at most. This baseline is important in estimating changes in the past and for comparing future outlines. This research will be utilizing oblique photographs of current glacier extent, will need to convert the imagery to georectified glacier extent to define the glacier area and estimate volume changes using area-volume scaling methods. After these steps have been implemented, will populate a geospatial database with historic maps and photographs, photographs of current glacier extent, and historic and current outlines of glacier extent and make these data available to the scientific community, students, and the general public via the world wide web.

High