The Сurrent Trends in Glacier Change in the Caucasus Mountains

Glacier inventories of the entire Caucasus mountain range have already been conducted for the years 1960, 1986, 2014 (Tielidze & Wheat, 2018), 2019 (Khromova et al., 2021). These inventories need to be continued as they are essential for understanding glacier responses to modern climate change. Therefore, in this paper, we present an updated inventory of glaciers of the Caucasus for the year 2023, and identify current trends for glaciers in the 21st century. For this purpose, we used Sentinel-2 satellite images for remote sensing of glaciers, and the ASTER global digital elevation model for determining glacier exposures and their distribution in absolute elevation. Glaciers were mapped manually, and by analysing the interpretation results, we obtained values for the rate of reduction of Caucasus glaciers equal to 1.20% year-1 for the study period from 2000 to 2023. In addition, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of changes using additional data sets, In addition, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of spatial changes of glaciers using additional data sets - on the average, minimum and maximum absolute height of glacier location, location relative to the sections of the Caucasus - Western, Central and Eastern, and the slope occupied by glaciers - Southern or Northern, obtained from the ASTER GDEM Version 003. This analysis allowed us to trace the relationship between glacier shrinkage trends and their location, height and area.