- 1Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia (tielidzelevan@gmail.com)
- 2School of Natural Sciences and Medicine, Ilia State University, Tbilisi 0162, Georgia
- 3School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Faculty of Science, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
Glacier inventories serve as critical baseline data for understanding and assessing past, current, and possible future conditions of the local, regional, and global environment. In this study we present a manually mapped inventory of glaciers in the sub-Antarctic Heard Island, for 1947, 1988, and 2019, derived from large-scale topographical maps (1:50,000), cloud-free medium-resolution SPOT, and high-resolution PLEIADES satellite orthoimages.
The total glacier area has reduced from 289.4±6.1 km2 in 1947 to 260.3±6.3 km2 in 1988, which further decreased to 225.7±4.2 km2 in 2019. The mean glacier area has also reduced from 10 km2 to 8.7 km2 and to 6.4 km2 respectively, during the same period. The rate of annual glacier area loss was almost doubled (−0.43% yr−1) in the second investigated period (1988-2019), then it was (−0.25% yr−1) in the first period (1947-1988). Glaciers on the eastern slopes has experienced much higher decrease and retreat rates than the rest of the glaciers. The maximum retreat we observed between 1947 and 2019 was ~5.8 km for the east-facing Stephenson Glacier.
The findings of our study may provide information on how glaciers on Heard Island respond to climate change, potentially reducing uncertainty for further climate and glaciological modelling in this sub-Antarctic region.
How to cite: Tielidze, L., Mackintosh, A., and Yang, W.: Glacier inventory of the sub-Antarctic Heard Island, Australian external territory, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10618, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10618, 2025.
