Fedchenko Glacier

The Fedchenko Glacier (Russian Федченко ледник, English Fedchenko Glacier ) in the Pamirs in Tajikistan is 70 km in length with a width of between 2 and 3 km of the world's longest glaciers outside the polar regions. The 952 km ² large valley glacier was named after Alexei Pavlovich Fedchenko, the Russian scientist and explorer of Central Asia, who discovered in 1871 on an expedition to Turkestan jenseites the Alai Mountains designated by him Trans - Alai, the northern edge of the Pamir Mountains, the first Europeans.

The Fedchenko glacier runs in a northerly direction to the east side of Pik Garmo. It starts at an altitude of 6200 m above sea level. His glacier water flows at an altitude of about 2900 m, in the Seldara, the left source of the river Muksu.

The Fedchenko glacier was discovered in 1878, its length, however, was assumed to be only about 20 km. 1928, he led the Academy of Sciences of the USSR to the German and Austrian Alpine Club under the direction of Asia researcher Willi Rickmers Rickmers, a German - Russian Alai Pamir expedition. Through the German deputy expedition leader Richard Finsterwalder the glacier was completely measured by means of terrestrial photogrammetry. His ice thickness reaches a maximum of 1000 m and an average of 500 m, its volume is 46 km ³. It was created a map of the entire glacier area at a scale of 1:50,000.

As part of the International Geophysical Year participated in 1958 a group of researchers from the German Democratic Republic at a glaciological Pamirexpedition of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences for further exploration of the Fedchenko glacier. It was found that a decrease of icing took place. The tongue of the Fedchenko glacier retreated in the years 1928-1958 to 420 m back. In this period of 1 km ³ of ice loss has been determined.

Throughout the 20th century, it has been 1.4 % of its length (0.98 miles) and 2 km ³ of ice lost.