1. The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete invetory of glaciers
- Author
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Pfeffer, W. Tad, Arendt, Anthony A., Bliss, Andrew, Bolch, Tobias, Cogley, J. Graham, Gardner, Alex S., Hagen, Jon-Ove, Hock, Regine, Kaser, Georg, Kienholz, Christian, Miles, Evan S., Moholdt, Geir, Mölg, Nico, Paul, Frank, Radić, Valentina, Rastner, Philipp, Raup, Bruce H., Rich, Justin, Sharp, Martin J., Andreassen, L.M., Bajracharya, S., Barrand, N.E., Beedle, M.J., Berthier, E., Bhambri, R., Brown, I., Burgess, D.O., Burgess, E.W., Cawkwell, F., Chinn, T., Copland, L., Cullen, N.J., Davies, B., Angelis, H. De, Fountain, A.G., Frey, H., Giffen, B.A., Glasser, N.F., Gurney, S.D., Hagg, W., Hall, D.K., Haritashya, U.K., Hartmann, G., Herreid, S., Howat, I., Jiskoot, H., Khromova, T.E., Klein, A., Kohler, J., König, M., Kriegel, D., Kutuzov, S., Lavrentiev, I., Le Bris, R., Li, X., Manley, W.F., Mayer, C., Menounos, B., Mercer, A., Mool, P., Negrete, A., Nosenko, G., Nuth, C., Osmonov, A., Pettersson, R., Racoviteanu, A., Ranzi, R., Sarıkaya, M.A., Schneider, C., Sigurðsson, O., Sirguey, P., Stokes, C.R., Wheate, R., Wolken, G.J., Wu, L.Z., and Wyatt, F.R.
- Subjects
tropical glaciology ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,0208 environmental biotechnology ,glacier mapping ,Climate change ,02 engineering and technology ,01 natural sciences ,Antarctic glaciology ,Glacier mass balance ,Glacier mapping ,Arctic glaciology ,glacier delineation ,Remote sensing ,Satellite imagery ,Digital elevation model ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Earth-Surface Processes ,geography ,Tropical glaciology ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,Glacier ,Debris ,020801 environmental engineering ,Climatology ,Glacier delineation ,Ice sheet ,Limited resources ,Geology - Abstract
The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) is a globally complete collection of digital outlines of glaciers, excluding the ice sheets, developed to meet the needs of the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for estimates of past and future mass balance. The RGI was created with limited resources in a short period. Priority was given to completeness of coverage, but a limited, uniform set of attributes is attached to each of the ~198 000 glaciers in its latest version, 3.2. Satellite imagery from 1999–2010 provided most of the outlines. Their total extent is estimated as 726 800 ± 34 000 km2. The uncertainty, about ±5%, is derived from careful single-glacier and basin-scale uncertainty estimates and comparisons with inventories that were not sources for the RGI. The main contributors to uncertainty are probably misinterpretation of seasonal snow cover and debris cover. These errors appear not to be normally distributed, and quantifying them reliably is an unsolved problem. Combined with digital elevation models, the RGI glacier outlines yield hypsometries that can be combined with atmospheric data or model outputs for analysis of the impacts of climatic change on glaciers. The RGI has already proved its value in the generation of significantly improved aggregate estimates of glacier mass changes and total volume, and thus actual and potential contributions to sea-level rise.
- Published
- 2014