Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Ambinakudige, Shrinidhi

Committee Member

Cooke, William H.

Committee Member

Dash, Padmanava

Date of Degree

5-1-2020

Original embargo terms

Worldwide

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Geographic Information Systems

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Geosciences

Abstract

Glaciers adjust their sizes as a response to changing climatic conditions which make them a good indicator of climate change. Remote-sensing based glacier monitoring provides a robust way to inventory the health of glaciers and are estimated as a measure of changes in their area, length, volume and mass balance over a period. This research uses remote sensing methods to map glacier extents from satellite images and explores the efficacy of three machine learning algorithms for accurate glacier classification. The results indicated that the Columbia icefield lost 42 km2 of its area cover between 1985 and 2018. It was observed that smaller glaciers lost more of their area at a faster pace than larger ones. Change analysis showed the Columbia glacier experienced the highest area loss (-5.62 km2) and retreat (-3.37 km) while the Athabasca glacier recorded the highest mass ice lose (-2.54 m w.e.) over the study period.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16962

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