Glaciers
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Glacier changes provide independent and reliable evidence of climate change. Past, current and future glacier changes impact global sea level, the regional water cycle, and may increase local hazard risks. |
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| Domain: | Terrestrial | |
| Subdomain: | Cryosphere | |
| Scientific Area: | Snow and Ice | |
| ECV Steward: | Isabelle Gärtner-Roer | |
| Products: | Glacier Area; Glacier Elevation Change; Glacier Mass Change | |
Change in Glacier Mass
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Source: https://wgms.ch/data/faq/_FAQ_RefGlac_Global_Annual_MB.svg
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ECV Products and Requirements
These products and requirements reflect the Implementation Plan 2022 (GCOS-244).
The requirements are found in the complete 2022 ECVs Requirements document as well: ECV Glaciers.
| Products | Glacier Area | Glacier Elevation Change | Glacier Mass Change | ||||||
| (*) | Unit | Values | Unit | Values | Unit | Values | |||
| Horizontal Resolution | G | m | 1 | m | 1 | ||||
| B | 20 | 25 | |||||||
| T | 100 | 90 | |||||||
| Vertical Resolution | G | - | m | 0.01 | m | ||||
| B | - | 2 | 0.01 | ||||||
| T | - | 5 | 0.05 | ||||||
| Temporal Resolution | G | y | 1 | y | 1 | month | 1 | ||
| B | 3 | ||||||||
| T | 10 | 10 | 12 | ||||||
| Timeliness | G | y | 1 | d | |||||
| B | |||||||||
| T | 10 | 365 | |||||||
| Required Measurement Uncertainty (2-sigma) | G | % | 1 | m | kg m-2 y-1 | ||||
| B | 5 | 2 | 0.2 | ||||||
| T | 20 | 0.5 | |||||||
| Stability | G | m/decade | kg m-2 / decade | ||||||
| B | 2 | ||||||||
| T | 2 | ||||||||
(*) Goal (G): an ideal requirement above which further improvements are not necessary. Breakthrough (B): an intermediate level between threshold and goal which, if achieved, would result in a significant improvement for the targeted application. The breakthrough value may also indicate the level at which specified uses within climate monitoring become possible. It may be appropriate to have different breakthrough values for different uses. Threshold (T): the minimum requirement to be met to ensure that data are useful.
Data Sources
This list provides sources for openly accessible data sets with worldwide coverage for which metadata is available. It is curated by the respective GCOS ECV Steward(s). The list does not claim to be complete. Anyone with a suitable dataset who wishes it to be added to this list should contact the GCOS Secretariat.
In Situ Data:
- Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-G) Data Explorer
- Glacier Thickness Database (GlaThiDa)
Satellite:
- Satellite ECV Inventory by the CEOS/CGMS Working Group on Climate (WGClimate)
- GLIMS Glacier Database, NASA
- Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI)
