PANGAEA_987462 Caucasus glaciers debris cover inventory for 2000 and 2020 Gubanov, Afanasy Caucasus glaciers debris cover inventory for 2000 and 2020 2025-11-18 PANGAEA Dataset https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.987462 Investigator Afanasy Gubanov afanasygubanov@gmail.com Earth Science File content Processing software Date of determination Binary Object Binary Object (File Size) geoscientificInformation ArcMap software Caucasus Caucasus_Debris_Contour Climate change debris cover debris-covered glacier GIS data Glacier high-altitude Ice Melt moraine shapefile ArcMap software Complete 41.20505 44.00044 39.8778912 47.89671 unrestricted CC-BY-4.0: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International English PANGAEA Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science https://www.pangaea.de/ Data Center Contact Michael Diepenbroek info@pangaea.de

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Bremen Bremen 28359 Germany online 10 data points text/tab-separated-values Herreid, Sam; Pellicciotti, Francesca (2020): The state of rock debris covering Earth’s glaciers. Nature Geoscience, 13(9), 621-627, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0615-0 Scherler, Dirk; Wulf, Hendrik; Gorelick, Noel (2018): Global Assessment of Supraglacial Debris-Cover Extents. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(21), https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080158 Tielidze, Levan; Iacob, George; Holobâcă, Iulian Horia (2024): Mapping of Supra-Glacial Debris Cover in the Greater Caucasus: A Semi-Automated Multi-Sensor Approach. Geosciences, 14(7), 178, https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences14070178 Tielidze, Levan; Nosenko, Gennady A; Khromova, Tatiana E; Paul, Frank (2022): Strong acceleration of glacier area loss in the Greater Caucasus between 2000 and 2020. The Cryosphere, 16(2), 489-504, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-489-2022 Tielidze, Levan; Wheate, Roger D (2018): The Greater Caucasus Glacier Inventory (Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan). The Cryosphere, 12(1), 81-94, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-81-2018

The current stage of glaciation degradation is also manifested in the intensification of the input of lithogenic material to the glacier surface. Surface deposits significantly affect the ablation of glacier ice, which directly affects the glacier runoff and the glacier mass balance. For the entire Greater Caucasus, the moraine boundaries were determined using semi-automated methods [Scherler et al., 2018; Herreid & Pellicciotti, 2020; Tielidze et al., 2024, etc.]. This database presents the results of manual interpretation of the moraine cover boundaries as of 2000 (according to Landsat-7 data) and 2020 (Sentinel-2). The buffer method was used to assess the accuracy of determining the area of moraine-covered ice. As a result, from 2000 to 2020, the number of glaciers with noticeable moraine cover increased from 763 (34% of the number of glaciers in the Caucasus) to 1274 (58%), and their area - from 132.5 ± 8.6 km² (8-9% of the glacier area) to 163.9 ± 5.9 km² (14-15%). Due to the active degradation of glaciation, the activity of the lithogenic material input from the rocky surroundings of glaciers increased. The gradual rise of the kinematic boundary of the supply of glaciers in the Caucasus, characteristic of the modern evolutionary stage, leads to a characteristic tendency: over time, the melting of the first portions of moraine material along the flow line onto the daytime surface of the glacier is recorded higher and higher upstream, which is what we see when comparing 2000 and 2020 debris. The projection of the moraine cover during the retreat of glaciers often leads to the damming of the periglacial area and the formation of dangerous lakes. ** For all details see the full metadata description at "https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.987462"! ** Shapefile - contours of debris cover on glaciers (2000 based on RGI-7 catalogue for Caucasus, 2020 - on (Tielidze et al., 2018; Tielidze et al. 2022)) in WGS 1984 UTM 38N coordinate system. Attribute table contains: author ID, related-glaciers № and ID (RGI, WGI, other ID's), area as in year 2000 and 2020, river basin, Caucasus section (North or South, West-Central-East).

https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080158 Global Assessment of Supraglacial Debris-Cover Extents https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0615-0 The state of rock debris covering Earth’s glaciers https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences14070178 Mapping of Supra-Glacial Debris Cover in the Greater Caucasus: A Semi-Automated Multi-Sensor Approach https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-81-2018 The Greater Caucasus Glacier Inventory (Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-489-2022 Strong acceleration of glacier area loss in the Greater Caucasus between 2000 and 2020 DIF 9.4 2025-11-18 2026-04-30