Dear Graham,
Dear colleagues,

First of all, I highly appreciate the great efforts of the Randolph group towards an improved understanding of the global glacier distribution. It came just in time to compensate for the somehow slowing enthusiasm (and lack of operational manpower) of the GLIMS community.

I fully understand that the Randolph group is now looking for ways to secure the legacy of their efforts beyond IPCC AR5. At the same time, I would like to stress that in our mainly science-driven system there is not enough funding for running and regularly (and redundantly) updating more than one operational glacier inventory database. (We already went through that exercise when the GLIMS database operationally replaced the WGI database: then the solution was to include all new inventories with digital outlines into the GLIMS database and to only update the WGI when larger datasets in the WGI-format and without outlines become available.)

The GLIMS database is able storing multi-temporal datasets with exact time stamps and full metadata but has not yet global coverage. The Randolph dataset is designed as a temporal snapshot in time with global coverage but in many regions lacks of exact time stamps and comes with limited metadata.

In my view, the following approach would allow joining both Randolph and GLIMS efforts:
(1) Freeze the Randolph dataset at the present or a later version (depending on available funding and manpower of the driving projects) and continue making it available from the GLIMS website (hosted at NSIDC).
(2) Bring down the technical and manpower barriers for including glacier outlines into the GLIMS database (hosted at NSIDC).
(3) Include the high-quality glacier outlines from the Randolph dataset (after adding time stamps and re-attribution; cf. Paul et al. 2009) into the GLIMS database.
(4) Actively continue updating the GLIMS database with new glacier outlines at highest possible quality and metadata level.
(5) Derive a new version of the Randolph dataset (other any other product) once another important event (e.g. IPCC AR6) comes along with a specific purpose and with the opportunity for getting additional funds.

I wish you a nice GLIMS dinner with fruitful discussions at AGU and I'm looking forward to a constructive joint solution implemented next year.

Best, Michael

Reference: Paul, F., Barry, R.G., Gogley, J.G., Frey, H., Haeberli, W., Ohmura, A., Ommanney, S.C.L., Raup, B., Rivera, A. and Zemp, M. (2009): Recommendations for the compilation of glacier inventory data from digital sources. Annals of Glaciology, 50 (53).

+ + + +

Michael Zemp

Director WGMS, Dr. sc. nat.

email: michael.zemp@geo.uzh.ch
phone: +41 44 635 51 39

World Glacier Monitoring Service
Department of Geography
University of Zurich
Winterthurerstrasse 190
8057 Zurich
SWITZERLAND

wgms@geo.uzh.ch
http://www.wgms.ch

On 27.11.2013 19:14, Graham Cogley wrote: