Mapping small glaciers, rock glaciers and related features in an age of retreating glaciers: using decimal latitude-longitude locations and ‘Geomorphic Information Tensors’

Abstract

The need to study and record small, vanishing or vanished glaciers, moraines and rock glaciers, is examined with respect to climate changes since the Little Ice Age maximum. Geo-location, rather than just naming a location or inventory entry, should be used to allow comparisons with earlier records (in papers, as maps, images and inventories) and in subsequent research. Geo-locations can be given as metadata in texts, tables and figures with a decimal Latitude-Longitude (dLL) specified as a comma separated string. Linking a dLL to a topographic feature allows identification of and searching for landscape elements in a landsystem with a precision given by the decimal places used. Google Earth^TM provides a convenient way to find a dLL as well as examine landform elements and relationships between those elements. A dLL defined location can also act as an origin for a transect, with a bearing incorporated as a three-element csv string. Locations and bearings can be derived from Google Earth^TM as well as displayed on images. Information, such as slope elements, can be added to a transect to give a geo-referenced ‘geomorphic information tensor’. Examples show how these devices can be used to explore connectivity relationships between rock glaciers, debris-charged small glaciers and ice patches. This has implications for future mapping and inventories such as the Randolph Glacier Inventory as well as mapping sites of potential hazards.