Scientists Map Glaciers Worldwide: First Global Inventory of Ice Created

Scientists have managed an astonishing feat. They've mapped all of the world's glaciers, showing to unprecedented accuracy the impacts of climate change on these masses of melting ice.

This recent effort represents a collaborative work of more than 70 scientists from 18 countries. They used satellite data and the application of geoinformatic techniques to eventually map all of the world's glaciers.

"This boost to the infrastructure means that people can now do research that they simply couldn't do properly before," said Graham Cogley, one of the researchers who worked on the new Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI), in a news release.

Overall, glaciers cover an area of about 730,000 square kilometers and have a volume of about 170,000 cubic kilometers. In all, there exists about 200,000 glaciers globally; that said, this is constantly changing as smaller glaciers disappear and larger glaciers fragment. Currently, the total extent of the glaciers in the RGI is about the size of Germany plus Switzerland and Poland.

The findings are huge in terms of future studies. By mapping these glaciers, the scientists can better understand how climate will influence these bodies of ice in the future. That will become increasingly important as sea levels rise due to warmer temperatures.

"The rapid shrinkage of glaciers during the past 20 years is also well-recognizable in the Alsp and other parts of the world," said Frank Paul, one of the researchers involved in the new study, in a news release. "Here and in other parts of the world the diminishing glaciers also impact on regional to local scale hydrology, natural hazards, and livelihoods in otherwise dry mountain regions. Accurate knowledge of water reserves and their future evolution is thus key for local authorities for early implementation of mitigation measures."

The findings are published in the Journal of Glaciology.