Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Science Rendezvous > 2009 Posters
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GLIMS: Progress in Mapping the World's Glaciers

Bruce H. Raup, Siri Jodha S. Khalsa, and Richard Armstrong

The Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) project has built a database of glacier data, composed of glacier outlines and various attributes. These data are being derived primarily from satellite imagery, such as from ASTER and Landsat. Each snapshot of a glacier is from a specific time, and the database is designed to store multiple snapshots representative of different times. The database currently contains outlines for approximately 62,000 glaciers.

We have implemented two web-based interfaces to the database. One enables exploration of the data via interactive maps (web map server), while the other allows searches based on text-field constraints. The web map server creates interactive maps on our Web site, and can also supply glacier layers from our site over the Internet to other servers.

As a service to the GLIMS community, the database contains metadata on all ASTER imagery (approximately 200,000 images) acquired over glacierized terrain. Reduced-resolution images can be viewed either as a layer in the MapServer application, or overlaid on the virtual globe within Google Earth.

The system allows users to download their selected glacier data in a choice of formats. The results of a query based on spatial selection (using a mouse) or text-field constraints can be downloaded in any of these formats: ESRI shapefiles, KML (Google Earth), MapInfo, GML (Geography Markup Language) and GMT (Generic Mapping Tools). This "clip-and-ship" function allows users to download only the data they are interested in.

We supply a free application called GLIMSView that Regional Centers are using to digitize glacier outlines, or to prepare outlines produced with other tools for ingest into the GLIMS Glacier Database

Our flexible web interfaces to the database, which includes various support layers, will facilitate enhanced analysis to be undertaken on glacier systems, their distribution, and their impacts on other Earth systems.