Dynamic Monitoring of Debris-Covered Glacier Surface Velocity and Ice Thickness of Mt.Tomur, Tian Shan, China

The Mt.Tomur glaciers, in the Tian Shan mountains of Western China, are usually debris-covered, and due to climate change, glacial hazards becoming more frequent this region. However, no changes long-time series glacier surface velocities have been observed Conducting field measurements high-altitude is relatively difficult, consequently, dynamics driving factors less studied. Here, image-correlation offset tracking using Landsat images was exploited estimate velocity glaciers region from 2000 2020 assess ice thickness. results show that showed a significant slowdown during 2000–2020, 6.71 ± 0.66 m a?1 3.95 a?1, an overall decrease 41.13%. maximum thickness estimated based on flow principle being 171.27 17.10 m, average 50.00 5.0 m. Glacier at first increases with increasing altitude, showing than 100 10 between 3400 4300 then decreases further altitude. reliability obtained remote sensing proved measured Qingbingtan No. 72 stall (the correlation coefficient R2 > 0.85). debris cover has mitigating effect ablation movement rate 72; however, it accelerating 74.