Average cumulative mass balance of reference Glaciers worldwide

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Average cumulative mass balance of "reference" Glaciers worldwide from 1945-2014 sourced from US EPA and the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). This is cumulative change in mass balance of a set of "reference" glaciers worldwide beginning in 1945. The values represents the average of all the glaciers that were measured. Negative values indicate a net loss of ice and snow compared with the base year of 1945. For consistency, measurements are in meters of water equivalent, which represent changes in the average thickness of a glacier.

Data

Sources

• Name: Climate Change Indicators in the United States
• Web: http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_downloads/glaciers_fig-1.csv

• Name: World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS)
• Web: http://wgms.ch/downloads/wgms_2013_gmbb12.pdf

Related publications:

WGMS (2015): Global Glacier Change Bulletin No. 1 (2012-2013). Zemp, M., Gärtner-Roer, I., Nussbaumer, S.U., Hüsler, F., Machguth, H., Mölg, N., Paul, F., and Hoelzle, M. (eds.), ICSU(WDS)/IUGG(IACS)/UNEP/UNESCO/WMO, World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, Switzerland, 230 pp. Based on database version: doi: 10.5904/wgms-fog-2015-11. WGMS (2013): Glacier Mass Balance Bulletin No. 12 (2010-2011). Zemp, M., Nussbaumer, S.U., Naegeli, K., Gärtner-Roer, I., Paul, F., Hoelzle, M. and Haeberli, W. (eds.), ICSU (WDS) / IUGG (IACS) / UNEP / UNESCO / WMO, World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, Switzerland: 106 pp., publication based on database version:doi:10.5904/wgms-fog-2013-11.

WGMS (2012): Fluctuations of Glaciers 2005-2010 (Vol. X): Zemp, M., Frey, H., Gärtner-Roer, I., Nussbaumer, S.U., Hoelzle, M., Paul, F. & W. Haeberli (eds.), ICSU (WDS)/ IUGG (IACS)/ UNEP/ UNESCO/ WMO, World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, Switzerland. Based on database version doi: 10.5904/wgms-fog-2012-11.

WGMS (World Glacier Monitoring Service). 2015 update to data originally published in: WGMS. 2013. Glacier mass balance bulletin no. 12 (2010–2011). Zemp, M., S.U. Nussbaumer, K. Naegeli, I. Gärtner-Roer, F. Paul, M. Hoelzle, and W. Haeberli (eds.). ICSU (WDS)/IUGG (IACS)/UNEP/UNESCO/WMO. Zurich, Switzerland: World Glacier Monitoring Service. http://wgms.ch/downloads/wgms_2013_gmbb12.pdf. WGMS World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, Switzerland

License

Data

EPA is Federal Government so public domain we would assume.

WGMS make their data available as "Open access for scientific and educational purposes under requirement of correct citation":

Additional work

Citations

Useful info

There does seem to be more recent data because there are graphs with more recent e.g. graphs like this on Climate.gov, or PDF data like this from World Glacier monitoring service and this PDF from WGMS.

• Data from World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS): http://wgms.ch/data_databaseversions/ Here is zip file with datasets: http://wgms.ch/downloads/DOI-WGMS-FoG-2015-11.zip Internationally collected, standardized dataset on changes in glaciers (length, area, volume, mass), based on in-situ and remotely sensed observations, as well as on reconstructions.

• GLIMS Glacier database. From the site: "GLIMS (Global Land Ice Measurements from Space) is a project designed to monitor the world's glaciers primarily using data from optical satellite instruments, such as ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and reflection Radiometer)." Data can be found at http://glims.colorado.edu/glacierdata/ which links to http://www.glims.org/download/. Data is large tgz files - probably containing geodata on individual glacier outlines. Stats on data contents at http://glims.colorado.edu/glacierdata/db_summary_stats.php - these show coverage from 1870 to 2011 and thousands of glaciers worldwide.

  • Relationship to WGMS World Glacier Inventory: "The GLIMS database is designed to be a logical extension of the World Glacier Inventory (WGI) of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) and stores the full complement of the WGMS-defined glacier characteristics." source

• The US EPA also have this Graph: Average cumulative mass balance of "reference" Glaciers worldwide from 1945-2014. You can get the CSV Data for the graph here: http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_downloads/glaciers_fig-1.csv. According to the footnote for the graph the original source is:

  WGMS (World Glacier Monitoring Service). 2015 update to data originally published in: WGMS. 2013. Glacier mass balance bulletin no. 12 (2010–2011). Zemp, M., S.U. Nussbaumer, K. Naegeli, I. Gärtner-Roer, F. Paul, M. Hoelzle, and W. Haeberli (eds.). ICSU (WDS)/IUGG (IACS)/UNEP/UNESCO/WMO. Zurich, Switzerland: World Glacier Monitoring Service. http://wgms.ch/downloads/wgms_2013_gmbb12.pdf.

• NOAA Glacier Mass Balance and Regime Measurements and Analysis, 1945-2003, Version 1 Data can be found here but I'm not sure if this link will lead you directly, it requires registration, but here is the link for datasets: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/NOAA/G10002/Supplement2005/