Estimation of Spatial Albedo On Condoriri Glacier Using Satellite Imagery

Abstract

 There are densely populated cities, such as the capital, La Paz and El Alto located in the western part of Bolivia. This area has an annual rainfall of only about 500 millimeters. Therefore, tropical glaciers in the Andes are important water resources for Bolivians. However, tropical glaciers are retreating under recent global warming and there are growing concerns about water shortage in the future. The amount of melting glaciers needs to be projected to grasp how much water is available in the future for this purpose. In this study, we estimated surface albedo in the visible range (from 0.4 to 0.7 um) which is one of parameters for calculating glacier melt and mapped the distribution of albedo on Condoriri glacier in Bolivia by using Landsat imageries from 1988 to 2011. As a result, average value of albedo on the glacier was 0.58, which was higher than albedo on water area (from 0.0 to 0.1) and albedo on bare area (from 0.1 to 0.4) on September 4, 2005.