Name
Satellite Evidence of Seasonal Glacier Truncation in Western Continental North America
Date & Time
Tuesday, May 26, 2026, 11:45 AM - 12:00 PM
Description
Seasonal glacier truncation describes a state in which a glacier loses its entire accumulation area during a given year. Recent observations suggest that this phenomenon is becoming increasingly widespread, with progressive shrinkage—and in some cases complete disappearance—of accumulation zones across many glaciers. Despite its potential implications for glacier mass balance and long-term viability, seasonal truncation remains poorly quantified at large spatial scales.
This study aims to analyze, quantify, and characterize seasonal glacier truncation across Western Continental North America using satellite remote sensing. The objectives are to assess the spatial and temporal extent of this phenomenon, identify affected glaciers, and evaluate their interannual behavior and potential reversibility under ongoing climate change.
The analysis covers the entirety of Western Continental North America and is conducted annually over the summer ablation season (1 July–30 September). Glacier outlines are derived from the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI), with a preprocessing step applied to select glaciers suitable for automated analysis. A U-Net–based semantic segmentation model is trained using manually labeled data and multispectral and thermal imagery from Landsat and Sentinel sensors.
For each glacier, an annual “worst-state” map is generated by aggregating all summer scenes to retain the most unfavorable surface condition observed at each pixel. This approach reduces the influence of cloud cover, model noise, and transient snowfall while capturing maximum annual ablation.
The resulting dataset enables continent-scale identification of seasonally truncated glaciers, quantification of truncation frequency and intensity, and assessment of its implications for glacier melt dynamics and long-term glacier resilience.
Location Name
McInnes Room
Full Address
Dalhousie University
Halifax NS
Canada
Halifax NS
Canada
Session Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract ID
221
Speaker Organization
ETS
Session Name
H9 (1 of 2)
Co-authors
Michel Baraer, École de technologie supérieure
Caroline Aubry-Wake, University of Lethbridge
Presenting Author
Maxime Tarka, Environmental Engineering, École de technologie supérieure