GLIMS: Links to other programmes

The GLIMS project will make major contributions to several ongoing and new national and international programs. At the international level, these relate particularly to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) components GEWEX, GCOS, and the new Task Group initiative for Climate and Cryosphere (CLIC) program. Roger Barry is a member of the GCOS/ Terrestrial Observations Panel for Climate (TOPC), which is coordinating the establishment of a monitoring network within the Global Hierarchical Observing Strategy ( GHOST). (See Letter of Support from GCOS.) Barry is also co-chair of the new CLIC Task Group and a member of the scientific steering group for the Arctic Climate System (ACSYS) component of WCRP. The state of mountain glaciers has already been identified as a topic of great concern for CLIC in the context of sea level changes and water resources (WCRP 1998). Within GEWEX, runoff from glacierized basins is important for GAME (the GEWEX Asian Monsoon Experiment) and plays a minor role in the Mackenzie Basin (MAGS). Broad concern for mountain environments, and specifically water resources, was expressed at the the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit (UNCED, 1992, ch. 13 on Mountains, and ch.18 on Water). Mountain Agenda (1998) illustrates the problems of mountain water resources involving glacierized basins such as the Indus, Rhine, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya, and specific cases such as the Zongo glacier supplying water for La Paz, Bolivia. Within the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, trends in ice are of interest to the Past Global Changes Project, which is addressing ice sheet mass balance and sea level changes, and Biospheric Aspects of the Hydrologic Cycle (BAHC), which is addressing hydrological characteristics of mountain regions. 2002 has been designated by the United Nations "the year of the mountain;" activities are being organized. Mountain glaciers are recognized as crucial water sources for future development, as laid out for instance in a recent book by Beck called Mountains: Water Towers of the Twenty-first Century. WCRP and IGBP directly support only planning and coordination activities, but their statements represent the assessments of leading specialists in climate and global change research. Projects such as GLIMS, which contribute directly to WCRP and other international programs, depend on national agencies for funding support. GLIMS will also collaborate with several ongoing programs and activities, both receiving and supplying data and information. These include:

1. World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS): This long-standing activity headquartered in Zurich has coordinated reporting of glacier mapping and mass balance studies. Through a system of national correspondents, WGMS compiles results of field studies on a set of glaciers each year. WGMS maintains an electronic inventory of glaciers listing the location, name, size, characteristic elevations, and other tabular data for approximately 100,000 glaciers. This database is uneven in level of detail and completeness. WGMS has not included digital images nor a GIS.
2. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)/World Data Center-A for Glaciology. NSIDC is an EOSDIS active archive center for a variety of cryospheric datasets, particularly low-resolution (1 km and greater) satellite observations and in-situ data on snow cover, ground ice, etc. NSIDC has recovered and put in electronic form a large inventory of Eurasian glaciers. GLIMS has used this inventory for purposes of ASTER image acquisition planning.
3. West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative (WAIS): Chaired by Robert Bindschadler (email, bob@laural.gsfc.nasa.gov), WAIS is a multidisciplinary study of rapid climate change and effects on future ice-sheet stability and sea level (http://igloo.gsfc.nasa.gov/wais/). The goals of WAIS address two critical and interrelated climate questions: How do rapid global climate changes occur? How will the potentially unstable West Antarctic ice sheet affect future sea level?
4. GlobGlacier is a Data User Element within the European Space Agency's EO Applications Development Programme. The responsible organization is the University of Zurich, Department of Geography (Dr. Frank Paul). The main objectives of the GlobGlacier project are to:
   • Define EO based services for glacier monitoring based on the user requirements;
   • Integrate latest EO technology with state of the art ground-based observations;
   • Demonstrate and implement the services for the members of the User Group;
   • Validate the services;
   • Maintain a database of GlobGlacier products through the GLIMS database;
   • Thereby contribute to new scientific results in the domain of climate change detection, sea level contribution, climate modelling and hydrological modelling.
   The GlobGlacier services will cover glaciers from all over the world. The information products to be developed and demonstrated in the project will respond to the operational needs and requirements of a certain number of users who are actively involved in the project. Additionally, these products will provide an answer to the requirements of the GCOS implementation plan for UNFCCC, which defined Glaciers and Ice Caps as one of the Essential Climate Variables. The products will also contribute to fulfilling the response to this implementation plan from the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS): "Satellite Observation of the Climate System - CEOS Response to the GCOS Implementation Plan".
5. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) photo collection: The SCAR data set is the largest multinational collection of aerial photographs of Antarctica. Aerial photography has been acquired since 1946 (annually since 1980) using various mapping cameras and film types. The majority of film is panchromatic (black and white, wide spectral range); recent acquisitions include natural color and false-color IR ( http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/glis/hyper/guide/scar). Currently, the SCAR collection contains over 300,000 frames of aerial photography on about 1,400 rolls of film. The original negative film is stored at the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
6. Glacier Studies Project, U.S. Geological Survey. This program (http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/glacier_studies) is developing a global satellite image atlas of land ice, mainly using early Landsat images. The program, led by Richard Williams (email, rwilliam@nobska.er.usgs.gov) and Jane Ferrigno, includes three active tasks: the Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World Coastal-Change and Glaciological Maps of Antarctica, and a Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS). To date, 11 regional volumes have been completed or are in preparation for a comprehensive atlas-type publication, USGS Professional Paper 1386, which documents the condition of the world's land ice during the 1972-1982 period. A highly detailed assessment has been made of coastal change in Antarctica (http://pubs.usgs.gov/factsheet/fs50-98/); results of this effort will span the late 20th century and are being published by USGS as a set of 24-I series maps. Glacier Studies Project funding of GLIMS includes stewardship activities for mapping of glaciers and glacier lakes in the Chgugach Range of Alaska. The Glacier Studies Project is funded by the U.S. Geological Survey Geology Disciplines' Earth Surface Dynamics Program (http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/).
7. Dr. Andrew Bush of the University of Alberta Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (http://mercury.eas.ualberta.ca/bush/homepage/index.html). He specializes in the numerical modeling of atmospheres and oceans with particular emphasis on paleoclimate modeling. His role is GLIMS Climatology Advisor, and will be contributing on various upcoming GLIMS publications.