[GLIMS] 2015 year-end summary

[Bruce RAUP]

Hello all,

The year 2015 was wonderfully productive for GLIMS.  We want to thank
everyone who contributed data, ideas, funds, or sweat to the GLIMS
initiative over the last year.  Here are some highlights of major
developments:

- We have a new single point of contact for both GLIMS and RGI:  If you
   have data to contribute to GLIMS and RGI, sending email to
   glacierdata at nsidc.org will notify both groups.  For transfer of large
   files, ask in your message about our new FTP site for the purpose.

- We have a new online map application for viewing GLIMS (and other)
   glacier data.  See

   http://www.glims.org/maps/glims

- Leadership of GLIMS has changed.  Jeff Kargel handed the reins over to
   me, and a new GLIMS Core Team will be announced shortly.

- We have developed more tools at NSIDC for handling contributed data.  In
   the past, data contributors needed to put glacier data into a prescribed
   format.  While that format still does make ingest easier, we can now
   handle more variations, as long as the relevant information is included.
   If you have data you'd like to contribute but aren't sure about its
   format, let us know at glacierdata at nsidc.org and we can help figure out
   how to get the data into GLIMS.

- We continue to merge the Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) into GLIMS and
   to ingest data sets from other sources.  New data added in 2015 include
   glacier outlines and related data for:

    - RGI:  Antarctica and sub-Antarctic islands; Greenland periphery; New
      Zealand (redone to include hypsometry from RGI 5.0); Arctic Canada;
      low-latitude glaciers; southern South America

    - Iran

- Some updates have been made to personnel records in the GLIMS database
   (send me your updates if you have more)

- A GLIMS meeting was held during AGU in San Francisco on December 14.
   We discussed recent GLIMS activity, both at NSIDC and globally.


Some plans for the year ahead:

- Our new service-oriented architecture, completed last month, enables
   better interactive maps, more flexible download interfaces, more download
   options (more data types, RGI data model, etc.), and ease of maintenance.
   We will continue to build on this to make GLIMS data easier and more
   flexible to use.

- GLIMS is one component of the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers
   (GTN-G, http://www.gtn-g.org/).  We expect to continue to strengthen ties
   between different glacier-related institutions and glacier information
   sources.  We also hope to announce more frequent updates to databases and
   summaries of holdings.

- We will enhance GLIMS to provide new glacier data:  surface velocity
   fields, glacier front positions, center lines, outline time series.

- We will begin to implement a work flow so that all glacier outlines are
   augmented with topographic information (including hypsometry) and center
   lines.

If you have comments or suggestions for the GLIMS team, I would be happy to
hear them at braup at nsidc.org.  Suggestions for both GLIMS and RGI can be
sent to glacierdata at nsidc.org.  We welcome your input and continued
involvement.


Best wishes for 2016,
Bruce

-- 
Bruce H. RAUP
National Snow and Ice Data Center
University of Colorado
449 UCB,  Boulder, CO 80309
Phone:  303-492-8814
http://cires.colorado.edu/~braup/