Turkish glaciers shrink by half

http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2304/

By Laura Rocchio,
Landsat Communications Team
July 2, 2015

Researchers and citizens have known for some time that Turkey’s glaciers are shrinking. Now scientists have calculated the losses and found that more than half of the ice cover in this mountainous country has vanished since the 1970s. A team of researchers from Ege University (Turkey) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center analyzed four decades of Landsat satellite data to document this steady decline. The team, led by Dogukan Dogu Yavasli (Ege), published their results in June 2015 in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment.

The map above shows the proportional percent change of the 14 main Turkish glaciers that existed in the 1970s. Over 40 years, the total glacial area fell from 25 square kilometers (10 square miles) in the 1970s to 10.85 km2(4.19 mi2) in 2012-2013. Five of the glaciers have completely disappeared.

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