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Full catalog/NSIDC-0272
NSIDC-0272·v1·dataset

Worldwide glacier outlines database (GLIMS)

GLIMS Glacier Database, Version 1
cryosphere NASA NSIDCV0 Level 3 active WMSWFSGMLASCII
In plain English

What it measures. A worldwide catalog of glacier outlines and how their size is changing, covering the planet's roughly 200,000 mountain glaciers and ice caps, built up from contributions by many research institutions.

How it's made. Compiled from satellite imagery (the ASTER instrument on Terra and the Landsat satellites) plus historical records, organized through a network of regional coordinators.

How & where you'd use it. A reliable reference for scientists, students, and the public to study glacier shrinkage and climate change, downloadable in common mapping formats.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIERS › GLACIER EXTENT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1850-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byLANDSAT-7 (ETM+) · Terra (ASTER)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsWMS, WFS, GML, ASCII, Shapefile, KML
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Measure sea ice, snow cover and glaciers
  • Watch ice-sheet elevation change
  • Track freeze/thaw and permafrost
Official description

Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) is an international initiative with the goal of repeatedly surveying the world's estimated 200,000 glaciers. GLIMS uses data collected by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument aboard the Terra satellite and the LANDSAT series of satellites, along with historical observations. The GLIMS initiative has created a unique glacier inventory, storing information about the extent and rates of change of all the world's mountain glaciers and ice caps. The GLIMS Glacier Database was built up from data contributions from many glaciological institutions, which are managed by Regional Coordinators, who coordinate the production of glacier mapping results for their particular region. The GLIMS Glacier Database provides students, educators, scientists, and the public with reliable glacier data from these analyses. New glacier data are continually being added to the database. The GLIMS Glacier Viewer was developed to provide the public with easy access to the GLIMS Glacier Database. This Web application allows users to view and query several thematic layers, including glacier outlines, Regional Coordinator institution locations, the World Glacier Inventory, and more. GLIMS data can be downloaded into a number of GIS-compatible formats, including ESRI Shapefiles, MapInfo tables, Geographic Mark-up Language (GML), and Keyhole Mark-up Language (KML) suitable for viewing in Google Earth.

Get the data

nsidc-0272_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NSIDC-0272",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from NSIDCV0
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.