GLIMS at NSIDC
Glaciers are highly sensitive indicators of past and present
climate change. Their current area and volume are a response to both near-term
and long-term changes in both temperature and precipitation. In recent decades
most glaciers have been steadily shrinking. Because glaciers are important
indicators of past and future climatic changes, it is important that a
globally complete glacier inventory be maintained that contains
the current extent as well as the rates of change of the world's glaciers.
The GLIMS project (Global Land Ice Measurements from Space) is currently
creating a unique glacier inventory storing critical information about the
extent and rates of change of the world's estimated 160,000 glaciers.
GLIMS is an international collaborative project that includes more than
sixty institutions world-wide: its goal is to create this globally
comprehensive inventory of land ice including measurements of glacier area,
geometry, surface velocity, and snow line elevation. To perform these
analyses, the GLIMS project uses satellite data, primarily from the
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and
the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) as well as historical
information derived from maps and aerial photographs.
The analysis results are submitted to the GLIMS database at the National
Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. The GLIMS database
is funded through research grants from The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA). 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. Each analysis received by the GLIMS
team at NSIDC is ingested into the GLIMS Glacier Database and made
available to the public via the World Wide Web using an interactive mapping
web site based on the open source package MapServer. The web interface
thus acts as a visual front-end providing easy access to the GLIMS Glacier
Database. New glacier data are continually being added to the database.
The GLIMS MapServer web site allows users to view and query several
thematic layers, including glacier outlines, ASTER footprints, GLIMS
Regional Center locations, and the World Glacier Inventory. Query results
can be downloaded into a number of GIS-compatible formats, including ESRI
Shapefiles, MapInfo tables, and Geographic Mark-up Language (GML). The web
site allows users to perform a variety functions on the data including
attribute querying, selecting, and exporting the glacial data through the
use of a visual selection map and/or a form-based selection process. The
data are stored in a spatially enabled database (PostGIS), which has
sophisticated functions for spatial data analysis and query. The GLIMS
Glacier Database also allows the user to view reduced-resolution ASTER
browse images and to query the ASTER image metadata. The MapServer
application can serve data from the GLIMS Glacier Database to other
OGC-compliant services via OGC-standard protocols, thereby increasing the
utility of this glacier data set.
Distribution of glaciers and ice around the world.
See also:
GLIMS Glacier Database
GLIMS Project Web Site
Global Glacier Recession
Glacier Photograph Collection
World Glacier Inventory
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