Background and Overview. Dufourkarte MTB 1862 history ¦ organisation ¦ monitoring strategy ¦ website ¦ datasets

Background and Overview

Dufourkarte MTB 1862

history ¦ organisation ¦ monitoring strategy ¦ website ¦ datasets

1862

Louis Agassiz 1807-1873

Ice

auge

r of A

gass

iz &

Des

or, S

wis

s A

lpin

e M

useu

m, B

ern

Agassiz publishes his Ice Age theories in the 1840s

Visualization by P. Rastner


1894

F.-A. Forel (1841-1912) initiates internationally coordinated glacier observations in 1894



1940s

Onset of glacier-wide mass balance measurement programmes Tarfala Research StationPhoto by S. Nussbaumer



1965-74

First consideration of the need for a World Glacier Inventory http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu



1979

1st World Climate Conference brings the climate change issue on the political agenda



1986

Merger of PSFG and TTS/WGI into the World Glacier Monitoring Service



1988

Foundation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change



1990

First Assessment Report (FAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change



1992

Foundation of the UNFCCC and of GCOS



1998

Establishment of GTN-G under the lead of the WGMS



today

Evaluation of GTN-G and its operational bodies (WGMS, NSIDC, GLIMS)




Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers (GTN-G)

Steering Committee

Advisory Board Executive Board

World Glacier Monitoring

Service

US National Snow and Ice Data Center

Global Land Ice Measurements

from Space

2.0 FTE 0.1 FTE

0.1 FTE

fluctuationsinventory data hosting

SKYVIEW

TERRAINVIEW


GCOS GTOSTOPC

ICSUWDS

IUGGIACS

UNFAO

UNEP UNESCO

WMO

GLIMS RCCRYOCLIM

GFCS

IPCC

GEOSS UNFCCC

CliC

EKKSCNAT

WCRP

ICSIIAHS CIG

GRID/ARENDAL

DEWAIHP

CCS

GKSEPSACVAW/ETH CRYONET

GTN-HGTN-P

ICIMOD NVE

PAGESNCCR-C

FAGSWDC-G

GTN-G

WGMSGLIMS

NSIDC

PSFGTTS/WGIFoG

GMBB

GPC

SCAR

GLACIODYN

CRYOCLIMGLOBGLACIER

GLACIER_CCI

WCRP

GEOGCW

GTN-G

operating in between an international sky of acronyms and a scientific herd of buffalo


relevantfeasable

understandableuseful

future-orientedcoherent

…observations must be

…corresponding strategies must be

…and the resulting products must be

cost-effective

„policy-related monitoring“ means that…


GCOS Tiered Monitoring System

A multi-level, integrative strategy combining:

local process understanding with global coverage,in-situ measurements with remote sensing, and traditional observations with new technologies


Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers: strategy

integrated / tiered observing strategyTier 1: multi-component obs. system across environmental gradientsTier 2: process understanding and model calibration

=> extensive energy & mass balance studiesTier 3: regional indicators

=> mass change (stakes&pits, photogrammetry, LIDAR)Tier 4: regional representativeness

=> cumulative length change; DEM differencingTier 5: global coverage

=> inventories (remote sensing/geoinformatics)

main goals of long-termobservations: process understanding model validation change detection impact assessments

change detection: rate of change acceleration trends pre-industrial variability change patterns

Haeberli et al. (2000)


time

base inventory

repeat inventory

repeat inventory

fluct

uatio

ns o

f gla

cier

s

mass balance length change

area/volume/thickness change

space glacier inventories

mass balance length change

area/volume/thickness change

Time and space


FoGWGMS

WGIWGMS / NSIDC

GLIMSNSIDC

Glacier photosNSIDC

One-stop data-portal on www.gtn-g.org

www.wgms.ch ¦ www.nsidc.org ¦ www.glims.org ¦ www.gtn-g.org

GTN-G datasets WGMS (2013, and earlier versions): Fluctuations of Glaciers Database. World

Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, Switzerland. DOI: 10.5904/wgms-fog-2013-11. WGMS and NSIDC (1989, updated 2012): World Glacier Inventory. Compiled and

made available by the World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, Switzerland, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder CO, USA. DOI: 10.7265/N5/NSIDC-WGI-2012-02.

NSIDC (2002, updated 2009): Glacier Photograph Collection. National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder, Colorado, USA. DOI: 10.7265/N5/NSIDC-GPC-2009-12

GLIMS and NSIDC (2005, updated 2012). GLIMS Glacier Database. National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder, Colorado, USA. DOI: 10.7265/N5V98602

NSIDC (2014, and earlier versions): Glacier observations from NASA's Operation IceBridge Aircraft Missions.

Arendt et al. (2013): Randolph Glacier Inventory (v3.2): A dataset of global glacier outlines. Global Land Ice Measurements from Space, Boulder, Colorado, USA.


GTN-G data policy Endorsement of ICSU’s fundamental principal of full and open exchange

of data and information for scientific and educational purposes. One-year retention period is granted to allow all investigators and data

contributors time to properly analyse, document, and publish their data and results before submitting them in standardized formats to GTN-G.

All data submitted to GTN-G are considered public domain for non-commercial use and are made digitally available at no costs.

The use of data and information from GTN-G requires acknowledgement to the respective GTN-G operational bodies (WGMS, NSIDC, GLIMS) and/or the original investigators and sponsoring agencies according to the available meta-information.

All GTN-G datasets come with citation recommendations and digital object identifiers.


120 years of internationallycoordinated glacier

monitoring

GTN-G istoday’s organisational

framework for the glacierdata centers and services

www.wgms.ch ¦ www.nsidc.org ¦ www.glims.org ¦ www.gtn-g.org

compilation and dissemination of standardized data about

glacier distribution and changes

Documents

Background and Overview. Dufourkarte MTB 1862 history ¦ organisation ¦ monitoring strategy ¦ website ¦ datasets