Variations of glaciers and glacial lakes in the Luozha region,eastern Himalayas,from 1980 to 2007

Based on the datasets of topographic maps of 1980,Landsat TM of 1988/1990,Landsat ETM + of 2000,ALOS AVNIR-2 of 2007 as well as 41 years(1967-2007) temperature and precipitation data in the Luozha Region of the eastern Himalayan,the variation characteristics of glacier and glacial lakes and its reason were investigated.The results showed that:(1) From 1980 to 2007,the total glacier area decreased from 491.64km2 to 410.87km2.The overall loss was 80.76km2,which was 16.4% of the whole glacial area in 1980.(2) The area of glacial lakes had expanded from 9.94km2 in 1980 to 13.02km2 in 2007.The overall increase was 3.08km2,which was 31.0% of the total glacial lake area in 1980.(3) The climate factors such as air temperature and precipitation from Cuona station were analyzed.The results showed that the increase of glacial meltwater caused by rising temperature and increasing precipitation in the study area jointly determined the expansion of glacial lakes.Increased annual temperature acted as the most significant factor,while increased precipitation made some contributions,too.