{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,4]],"date-time":"2026-03-04T03:55:00Z","timestamp":1772596500156,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,21]],"date-time":"2022-01-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1642723200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["42001381, 41801050"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["42001381, 41801050"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"China Post-Doctoral Program for Innovative Talents","award":["BX20200343"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["BX20200343"]}]},{"name":"China Post-Doctoral Science Foundation","award":["2020M670480"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2020M670480"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The response of lake-terminating glaciers to climate change is complex, and their rapid changes are often closely linked to glacial-lake outburst floods. However, the eastern Tanggula Mountains, which are the only area where lake-terminating glaciers are found within the Tibetan Plateau, have received little attention to date. In this study, to address this gap, we generated updated glacier boundaries and estimated the interdecadal area changes for 2000\u20132020 based on the interpretation of Landsat-5\/8 and Sentinel-2 images. In addition, based on the method of digital elevation model (DEM) differencing, we quantified the changes in glacier thickness and mass balance using TanDEM-X radar data and SRTM DEM over almost the same periods. The final results show that the glaciers in the eastern Tanggula Mountains, as a whole, have experienced accelerated area shrinkage (with a rate of area loss increasing from \u22120.34 \u00b1 0.83 km2 a\u22121 to \u22120.93 \u00b1 0.81 km2 a\u22121 for 2000\u20132013 and 2013\u20132020, respectively) and accelerated ice thinning (changing from \u22120.19 \u00b1 0.05 m a\u22121 and \u22120.53 \u00b1 0.08 m a\u22121 for 2000\u22122012 and 2012\u20132020, respectively). Furthermore, the region-wide glacier mass balance was \u22120.16 \u00b1 0.04 m w.e. a\u22121 and \u22120.45 \u00b1 0.07 m w.e. a\u22121 for these two sub-periods, corresponding to a 1.8 times acceleration of mass loss rate. The average mass balance during 2000\u20132020 was \u22120.23 \u00b1 0.04 m w.e. a\u22121, which is equivalent to a rate of mass loss of \u22120.04 Gt a\u22121. More specifically, within the region, the lake-terminating glaciers have exhibited more significant acceleration of area loss and mass loss, compared to the land-terminating glaciers. However, interestingly, the average thinning rate of the lake-terminating glaciers is always lower than that of the land-terminating glaciers over all study periods, which is in contrast with previous findings in other high mountain areas (e.g., the Himalaya Mountains). Field study and proglacial lakes monitoring suggest that the local topography plays a vital role in the evolution of the glacial lakes in this region, which further affects the glacier changes. Furthermore, the present status of the glacier changes in this region can be attributed to the long-term increase in air temperature. Our findings provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of glacier changes across the eastern Tanggula Mountains and will help to improve the understanding of the heterogeneous response of glaciers to climate change.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs14030506","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,23]],"date-time":"2022-01-23T20:34:40Z","timestamp":1642970080000},"page":"506","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Decadal Changes in Glacier Area, Surface Elevation and Mass Balance for 2000\u20132020 in the Eastern Tanggula Mountains Using Optical Images and TanDEM-X Radar Data"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Yushan","family":"Zhou","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2999-9818","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xin","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1151-3381","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Donghai","family":"Zheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}]},{"given":"Xiaolong","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}]},{"given":"Yingzheng","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China"}]},{"given":"Shanshan","family":"Ren","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China"}]},{"given":"Yanlong","family":"Guo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"363","DOI":"10.3389\/feart.2019.00363","article-title":"A systematic, regional assessment of high mountain asia glacier mass balance","volume":"7","author":"Shean","year":"2020","journal-title":"Front. Earth Sci."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"96","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2018.03.020","article-title":"Glacier mass balance in the qinghai\u2013tibet plateau and its surroundings from the mid-1970s to 2000 based on hexagon kh-9 and srtm dems","volume":"210","author":"Zhou","year":"2018","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"726","DOI":"10.1038\/s41586-021-03436-z","article-title":"Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century","volume":"592","author":"Hugonnet","year":"2021","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4133","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-021-24180-y","article-title":"High mountain asian glacier response to climate revealed by multi-temporal satellite observations since the 1960s","volume":"12","author":"Bhattacharya","year":"2021","journal-title":"Nat. Commun."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2016.11.008","article-title":"A regional-scale assessment of himalayan glacial lake changes using satellite observations from 1990 to 2015","volume":"189","author":"Nie","year":"2017","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2733","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-13-2733-2019","article-title":"Contrasting thinning patterns between lake- and land-terminating glaciers in the bhutanese himalaya","volume":"13","author":"Tsutaki","year":"2019","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liu, Q., Mayer, C., Wang, X., Nie, Y., Wu, K., Wei, J., and Liu, S. (2020). Interannual flow dynamics driven by frontal retreat of a lake-terminating glacier in the chinese central himalaya. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 546.","DOI":"10.1016\/j.epsl.2020.116450"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"366","DOI":"10.1038\/ngeo2934","article-title":"Inland thinning on the greenland ice sheet controlled by outlet glacier geometry","volume":"10","author":"Felikson","year":"2017","journal-title":"Nat. Geosci."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"347","DOI":"10.1017\/jog.2019.13","article-title":"Glacial lake evolution and glacier\u2013lake interactions in the poiqu river basin, central himalaya, 1964\u20132017","volume":"65","author":"Zhang","year":"2019","journal-title":"J. Glaciol."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"91","DOI":"10.1016\/j.geomorph.2018.02.002","article-title":"An inventory of historical glacial lake outburst floods in the himalayas based on remote sensing observations and geomorphological analysis","volume":"308","author":"Nie","year":"2018","journal-title":"Geomorphology"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3159","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-15-3159-2021","article-title":"The 2020 glacial lake outburst flood at jinwuco, tibet: Causes, impacts, and implications for hazard and risk assessment","volume":"15","author":"Zheng","year":"2021","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1909","DOI":"10.1007\/s11430-021-9844-0","article-title":"The joint driving effects of climate and weather changes caused the chamoli glacier-rock avalanche in the high altitudes of the india himalaya","volume":"64","author":"Zhou","year":"2021","journal-title":"Sci. China Earth Sci."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"257","DOI":"10.1038\/nature23878","article-title":"Impact of a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees celsius on asia\u2019s glaciers","volume":"549","author":"Kraaijenbrink","year":"2017","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"411","DOI":"10.1038\/s41558-021-01028-3","article-title":"Increasing risk of glacial lake outburst floods from future third pole deglaciation","volume":"11","author":"Zheng","year":"2021","journal-title":"Nat. Clim. Chang."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1035","DOI":"10.3189\/2013JoG12J184","article-title":"The influence of debris cover and glacial lakes on the recession of glaciers in sikkim himalaya, india","volume":"59","author":"Basnett","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Glaciol."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1263","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-7-1263-2013","article-title":"Region-wide glacier mass balances over the pamir-karakoram-himalaya during 1999\u20132011","volume":"7","author":"Gardelle","year":"2013","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"407","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-11-407-2017","article-title":"Spatial variability in mass loss of glaciers in the everest region, central himalayas, between 2000 and 2015","volume":"11","author":"King","year":"2017","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"111777","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2020.111777","article-title":"Which heterogeneous glacier melting patterns can be robustly observed from space? A multi-scale assessment in southeastern tibetan plateau","volume":"242","author":"Ke","year":"2020","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"46","DOI":"10.1016\/j.gloplacha.2018.05.006","article-title":"Contrasting geometric and dynamic evolution of lake and land-terminating glaciers in the central himalaya","volume":"167","author":"King","year":"2018","journal-title":"Glob. Planet. Chang."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"18145","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-019-53733-x","article-title":"Glacial lakes exacerbate himalayan glacier mass loss","volume":"9","author":"King","year":"2019","journal-title":"Sci. Rep."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"eaav7266","DOI":"10.1126\/sciadv.aav7266","article-title":"Acceleration of ice loss across the himalayas over the past 40 years","volume":"5","author":"Maurer","year":"2019","journal-title":"Sci. Adv."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"577","DOI":"10.1017\/jog.2021.9","article-title":"Accelerated glacier mass loss in the largest river and lake source regions of the tibetan plateau and its links with local water balance over 1976\u20132017","volume":"67","author":"Chen","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Glaciol."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liu, L., Jiang, L., Zhang, Z., Wang, H., and Ding, X. (2020). Recent accelerating glacier mass loss of the geladandong mountain, inner tibetan plateau, estimated from ziyuan-3 and tandem-x measurements. Remote Sens., 12.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12030472"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ren, S., Menenti, M., Jia, L., Zhang, J., Zhang, J., and Li, X. (2020). Glacier mass balance in the nyainqentanglha mountains between 2000 and 2017 retrieved from ziyuan-3 stereo images and the srtm dem. Remote Sens., 12.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12050864"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1623","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-7-1623-2013","article-title":"Recent mass balance of the purogangri ice cap, central tibetan plateau, by means of differential x-band sar interferometry","volume":"7","author":"Neckel","year":"2013","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"108","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isprsjprs.2017.05.011","article-title":"High-resolution digital elevation models from single-pass tandem-x interferometry over mountainous regions: A case study of inylchek glacier, central asia","volume":"130","author":"Neelmeijer","year":"2017","journal-title":"ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4798","DOI":"10.1109\/JSTARS.2021.3078084","article-title":"Tandem-x:Deriving insar height changes and velocity dynamics of great aletsch glacier","volume":"14","author":"Leinss","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"186","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2016.04.003","article-title":"Temporal monitoring of subglacial volcanoes with tandem-x\u2014Application to the 2014\u20132015 eruption within the b\u00e1r\u00f0arbunga volcanic system, iceland","volume":"181","author":"Rossi","year":"2016","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"271","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-5-271-2011","article-title":"Co-registration and bias corrections of satellite elevation data sets for quantifying glacier thickness change","volume":"5","author":"Nuth","year":"2011","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"419","DOI":"10.3189\/2012JoG11J175","article-title":"Impact of resolution and radar penetration on glacier elevation changes computed from dem differencing","volume":"58","author":"Gardelle","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Glaciol."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4244","DOI":"10.1109\/JSTARS.2021.3070362","article-title":"Regional and altitude-dependent estimate of the srtm c\/x-band radar penetration difference on high mountain asia glaciers","volume":"14","author":"Li","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"877","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-7-877-2013","article-title":"Density assumptions for converting geodetic glacier volume change to mass change","volume":"7","author":"Huss","year":"2013","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2581","DOI":"10.5194\/tc-14-2581-2020","article-title":"The era5-land soil temperature bias in permafrost regions","volume":"14","author":"Cao","year":"2020","journal-title":"Cryosphere"},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"256","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2017.08.038","article-title":"Error sources and guidelines for quality assessment of glacier area, elevation change, and velocity products derived from satellite data in the glaciers_cci project","volume":"203","author":"Paul","year":"2017","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"38","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jhydrol.2019.01.007","article-title":"Quantifying glacier mass change and its contribution to lake growths in central kunlun during 2000\u20132015 from multi-source remote sensing data","volume":"570","author":"Zhou","year":"2019","journal-title":"J. Hydrol."},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"666","DOI":"10.3189\/002214309789470950","article-title":"Spatially integrated geodetic glacier mass balance and its uncertainty based on geostatistical analysis: Application to the western svartisen ice cap, norway","volume":"55","author":"Rolstad","year":"2009","journal-title":"J. Glaciol."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"551","DOI":"10.1657\/AAAR0016-065","article-title":"Region-wide glacier mass budgets for the tanggula mountains between \u223c1969 and \u223c2015 derived from remote sensing data","volume":"49","author":"Chen","year":"2017","journal-title":"Arct. Antarct. Alp. Res."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"177","DOI":"10.1016\/j.gloplacha.2016.12.018","article-title":"Recent decadal glacier mass balances over the western nyainqentanglha mountains and the increase in their melting contribution to nam co lake measured by differential bistatic sar interferometry","volume":"149","author":"Li","year":"2017","journal-title":"Glob. Planet. Chang."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"139607","DOI":"10.1016\/j.scitotenv.2020.139607","article-title":"Response of glacial lakes to glacier and climate changes in the western nyainqentanglha range","volume":"735","author":"Luo","year":"2020","journal-title":"Sci. Total Environ."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"422","DOI":"10.1017\/jog.2019.20","article-title":"Glacier mass balance over the central nyainqentanglha range during recent decades derived from remote-sensing data","volume":"65","author":"Wu","year":"2019","journal-title":"J. Glaciol."}],"container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/14\/3\/506\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T22:05:27Z","timestamp":1760133927000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/14\/3\/506"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,21]]},"references-count":40,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,2]]}},"alternative-id":["rs14030506"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/rs14030506","relation":{},"ISSN":["2072-4292"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2072-4292","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,21]]}}}