In 2007 ESA launched the GlobGlacier project with the principal aim to assess, by satellite monitoring, the overall pattern of changes in the Earth's glaciers for a better determination of climate change impacts. More recently, on 1 February this year ESA highlighted the valuable role of satellites for the observation of glaciers melting which can be assessed or foreseen thanks to a detailed glacier inventory. ESA's new Climate Change Initiative will build on the results of the GlobGlacier project by further improving the glaciers monitoring and continually updating the existing glaciers inventory.
In its article of 1 February 2010 ESA highlights the valuable role of satellites for constant monitoring of Earth's glaciers. Given that the latter are among the most reliable indicators of climate change and that they have a considerable impact on the water cycle, knowledge of the recent changes and future behaviour of the glaciers is of great interest for climate scientists and decision-makers.
Data from satellites allow scientists to measure glaciers extent in detail and to expand the local measurements to a regional scale. Considering this possibility, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) has called for the systematic monitoring of glaciers by satellites in support of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Additionally, a detailed glaciers inventory was needed in order to assess the changes occurring in the glaciers or to model their future evolution.
In 2007 ESA started the GlobGlacier project with the principal aim to establish a service for glaciers monitoring from space, based on user requirements, and to complete the world glaciers inventory (WGI) from 1970 by producing glaciers outlines in regions where no inventory has been done and by complementing the information already existing in order to allow change assessment.
Concretely, the inventory combines information on glaciers outlines based on archived satellite data from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instruments with topographic information from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission and the Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) from ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer). ESA's ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data are providing velocity measurements of selected glaciers.
ESA's new Climate Change Initiative, that will produce robust long-term records of essential climate variables, will build on the results of the GlobGlacier project by further improving the algorithms for glaciers monitoring and continually updating the glaciers inventory information.
More information at:
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMY4HUJ15G_index_0.html
The GlobGlacier project :
http://www.globglacier.ch/