Abstract
The article considers the possibilities of assessing the glaciation area of the Northern Ile and Ile-Kungey glacier systems based on monitoring data from a limited sample of test glaciers. During testing in each of the mentioned glacier systems, based on the data on the area of two samples of 10 glaciers, their total sample (20 glaciers) and their share in the total area of glaciers in each of the named glaciation regions, the area of glaciers of the corresponding glacier system was calculated. According to the testing results, the values of the correlation coefficient of the calculated and actual (based on the results of glacier cataloguing) values of the glaciation area for the three mentioned glacier samples were 0.99, 0.98, and 0.99 for the Northern Ile glacier system and 0.99, 0.97, and 0.99 for the Ilei-Kungey, respectively. The testing results leave no doubt about the possibility of operational monitoring of the glaciation area dynamics of mountain glacier systems based on the data on the area of a limited sample of glaciers of the corresponding glacier system with an error of no more than ±5 %. According to the testing results, the calculated values of the glacier area of the considered glacier systems in 88 % of cases were less than 5% of the actual values, and only in 4 cases out of 33 (12 %) they exceeded this threshold, with an average deviation of the calculated data from the actual values of less than 2 % and the largest calculation errors of 7.8 and -9.6 %. This indicates the high efficiency of the method of operational monitoring of mountain glacier systems. It allows to rapidly (with a repeatability from once every few years to annually) assess the loss of perennial ice in the considered glacier system and the contribution of glacial meltwater to the formation of river flow. Which, in its turn, is a good basis for the corresponding modeling of current and predicted changes.