Investigating the Spatiotemporal Variations in Glacier Elevation Changes over the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau Using Multisource Satellite Data

The southeastern Tibetan Plateau (SETP) hosts the highest concentration of temperate glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, which have experienced accelerated melting in recent decades. However, comprehensively quantifying the spatiotemporal variations in these glacier elevation changes remains a challenging task. To address this, we developed a framework integrating multi-source satellite observations—including ASTER stereo imagery, ICESat, ICESat-2, and CryoSat-2 CryoTEMPO-EOLIS data—to estimate elevation changes across the region. By deriving yearly time-series elevation changes for each 0.5° × 0.5° tile, we calculated a region-wide mean glacier elevation change rate of −0.710 ± 0.046 m/yr from 2000 to 2022. Our analysis reveals significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Temporally, the glacier thinning rate accelerated by 31.4% during 2011–2022 compared to 2000–2011. Spatially, among glaciers larger than 4 km2, 12.6% experienced slight thickening, 56.5% showed slight thinning, and 30.9% underwent rapid thinning. The maximum observed thickening and thinning rates were 0.81 m/yr and −1.68 m/yr, respectively.