Elevation change with ICESat‑2

Cordillera Vilcanota, 2018–2026

research
Audited glacier surface-elevation change from ICESat-2 ATL06-SR and COP30.

Consolidated / audited

Data and quality control

The query retrieved 639,415 ATL06‑SR segments. After AOI selection and quality control, 27,160 glacier points and 141,868 stable-terrain points remained across 129 passes and eight RGTs.

COP30 was converted from EGM2008 orthometric heights to ellipsoidal heights using a geoid correction of approximately 47.1 m. After co-registration, the stable-terrain median changed from −0.607 to −0.152 m and then to −0.008 m after residual correction; final NMAD was 4.631 m.

Main trend

Five estimates of surface-elevation change in Vilcanota, all showing negative trends
The hypsometry-weighted estimate represents 96.5% of the area and is used as the regional result.
Estimator Slope (m yr⁻¹) Uncertainty Use
Dry-season h′ −1.590 95% CI: −2.229 to −1.053 Primary product
All-observation h′ −1.523 95% CI: −1.953 to −1.114 Temporal sensitivity
Raw dh −1.356 95% CI: −1.740 to −0.980 Without hypsometric correction
Hypsometry weighted −1.463 95% CI: −2.357 to −0.596 Regional result
Hypsometric resampling −1.600 P5–P95: −1.732 to −1.434 50 iterations

Hydrological years

The diagnostic cumulative change relative to HY2020 reaches −6.90 m for the dry season and −8.10 m for all observations through HY2025. It is not a complete geodetic mass-balance estimate.

Defensible inference

A robust multi-year surface lowering close to 1.5 m yr⁻¹ is present, with stronger loss at lower and middle-lower elevations. Stable-terrain masking and residual NMAD remain open uncertainty components.

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