## 1 Introduction  
### Characterization of the Research Area  
The Antarctic Peninsula region and islands of the southern Atlantic Ocean have been identified as a region of notable dynamic change in glacial and climatic systems [1; 2; 3; 4; 5]. Over the last 50 years, large areas along the southern shoreline of King George Island have become ice-free. Several new nunataks have emerged, illustrating a significant reduction of glacier thickness. The late-Holocene maximum extent of glaciers on King George Island is marked by large ice-cored moraines, which were formed at the termination of the Little Ice Age (LIA) at the beginning of the 20 th century ([PERSON] et al., 2015). Lichenometric studies of moraine ages in ASPA-128 and ASPA-151 (Antarctic Specially Protected Areas) indicate that the post-LIA glacier retreat was relatively slow until the 1940s ([PERSON] et al., 2015). The first field studies of glaciers in Admiralty Bay were conducted in the 1950s and reported a general reduction in ice extent ([PERSON] et al., 2015). Since the 1950s, an increased glacier retreat has been reported on King George Island by numerous studies ([PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015). An increase in surface temperature was also observed over the past several years. According to a simple ice dynamic model described by [PERSON] et al. ([PERSON] et al., 2015), such conditions are likely to affect the glacial state of the King George Island ice caps. Moreover, there is evidence of a glacier mass balance deficit and increases in surface energy exchange in this region ([PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015). Most of the previous studies of glaciers retreat in ASPA-128 simply documented changes in the front positions of glaciers in different years on maps. These studies were in different scales, mostly focused on Ecology Glacier, did not include spatial analysis, and did not account for the different behaviours exhibited by dissimilar glacier types. Therefore, it is difficult to compare these results to each other and to calculate glacier retreat rates. For ASPA-128, there are no reports comparing fluctuations in glacier retreat with the climate data during the period of intensified reduction in glaciers extent between 1979-2018. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the rate of the reduction in glaciated area for five periods--1979-1989, 1989-2001, 2001-2007, 2007-2011, and 2011-2018--for different types of glaciers. Glacier retreat had a profound impact on local ecosystems including mammals, birds, and vegetation. The diverse avian and mammalian species and vegetation are the reason why the protected area of ASPA-128 was created. It has been shown that newly ice-free areas are dynamically colonised by plant communities ([PERSON] et al., 2015) and nesting bird populations. Algae, lichens, mosses, fungi, and plants have colonized these recently formed ice-free areas on the glacier forefields and nunataks ([PERSON] et al., 2015; [PERSON] et al., 2015). These include alien species of _Poa annua_ L., which were first found by the author during the mapping of the forefield of the Ecology Glacier in February 2009 (reported by [PERSON] and [PERSON] ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2015)). Additionally, new breeding areas became available for seals and birds. Therefore, it is important to document changes in glacier extent and also to identify the cause of these changes. To this point, there has been no integrated study of glacier retreat for ASPA-128 comparing how fast and how much of the area became ice-free between 1979 and 2018 as a result of climate change on King George Island (Figure 1).