C13A-0795
Impacts of Aerosols on the Retreat of the Sierra Nevada Glaciers in California
Monday, 14 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Hesham Mohamed El-Askary1, Jingjing Li2, Tommy Nghi Ta1, Ariane Jong1 and Xinyi Zhang1, (1)Chapman University, Orange, CA, United States, (2)California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Abstract:
Natural dust aerosol is an active component of the climate system and plays multiple roles in physical climate and bio-geo-chemical exchanges between the atmosphere, land surface and ocean. Aerosol deposition on snow is amongst the different causes of glacier retreat around the world as well as the reduction of snow albedo. We have observed a long range transport of dust and pollution aerosols from China to the U.S. In this paper we compared summer and winter seasons glacier changes between 2000 and 2013, and how the dust aerosol change over this 13 years. Multiple images, acquired from Landsat-5 TM, Landsat-7 ETM+ and Landsat-8 OLI were used in the study. The change detection analysis was employed to identify the glacier changes for two seasons. The results suggest that the glacier decreased dramatically over 13 years in both seasons.
