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The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete invetory of glaciers
- Source :
- Journal of Glaciology, Journal of glaciology, 2014, Vol.60(221), pp.537-552 [Peer Reviewed Journal]
- Publication Year :
- 2014
-
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.
- 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
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Glaciology, Journal of glaciology, 2014, Vol.60(221), pp.537-552 [Peer Reviewed Journal]
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....5bf332a0f60ce5b22205c5a0263c265d