Multitemporal analysis of a glacier in central Mexico: Iztaccihuatl-Popocatepetl National Park during the last 36 years

Changes in glacier area and length need to be precisely assessed to be valuable as indicators of climate change. The Iztaccíhuatl-Popocatépetl National Park covers 39,819.08 hectares and is located in the central Trans-Mexican Neovolcanic Belt in central Mexico. The peaks have maximum heights of 5,280 (Iztaccíhuatl) and 5,482 meters (Popocatépetl). In this study to measure snow coverage, the normalised differential snow index (NDSI) was applied to data from 1985 to 2021 obtained from Landsat 5-TM and Landsat 8-OLI with fine spatial resolution (30 m). Snow coverage as measured by the NDSI ranged from 5 km2 to 122 km2. The maximum area of coverage in the study period was observed in July, 2010. Throughout the study years we found snowfall in each month of the year and snowfall in the park each year. It should be noted that the glaciers of the Izta-Popo National Park supply water to more than 13 municipalities in the states of Mexico State, Puebla, Tlaxcala and Morelos, and that these municipalities have experienced exponential urban growth over the past 20 years.