Dataset landingpage: GlacioBasis Zackenberg - Glacier ice - Surface mass balance

This is the landing page for a dataset in the Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) database. This page embeds schema.org metadata as JSON-LD, describing the dataset in machine readable and interoperable format.

Dataset specification

  • Title: GlacioBasis Zackenberg - Glacier ice - Surface mass balance
  • Description: Point observations of surface mass balance using ablation stations. Glacier ice:Glacier ice GlacioBasis Zackenberg:Since 2008, the GlacioBasis programme has been monitoring the glacier surface mass balance at the A.P. Olsen Ice Cap and its response to climate forcing. Greenland’s glaciers and Ice Caps are losing mass at a rate more than double of the Ice Sheet when adjusted for size, accounting for 14-20 % of the total sea level rise contribution from Greenland. As the glaciological component of a core WMO GCW CryoNet site and a contributor to the GTN-G through WGMS, the GlacioBasis datasets complement the ongoing monitoring based at Zackenberg, enable process-based understanding of physical processes driven by glacier melt water run-off in the downstream terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and can inform regional and global assessments under AMAP and IPCC. GlacioBasis operates the year-round automatic monitoring of A.P. Olsen Ice Cap near-surface weather at three stations, a network of ablation stakes covering the entire altitude range, and geophysical survey campaigns on the ground (radar snow depth) and airborne (surface elevation from lidar, ice thickness from radar). GlacioBasis data collection is adaptively updated to support research in processes emerging as key sources of nonlinearity in the cryosphere, including melt water retention and albedo feedbacks. As a representative Northeast Greenland Ice Cap, A.P. Olsen observations delivered by GlacioBasis are available to the national and international remote sensing and climate modelling communities for calibration, validation and upscaling purposes.
  • DOI: 10.17897/SNZB-ZA54 - https://doi.org/10.17897/SNZB-ZA54
  • Location/site: AP_Olsen - -21.6000003814697, 74.6500015258789 (lon-lat wgs84)
  • Date span of the dataset: 2008 - 2022

Data originator, license and how to download the dataset

The dataset is a product of the Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring program (GEM): https://grid.ac/institutes/grid.507580.f. It is free and open data, licensed with terms of use under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ When downloading you will automatically get a terms of use document, describing how to cite the data and other important information.

Download the dataset via this link (registration needed): http://data.g-e-m.dk/log-in/data-tables?doi=10.17897/SNZB-ZA54

Variables measured / columns in dataset

ID Name Unit Data Type Description
http://data.g-e-m.dk/datasets?doi=10.17897/SNZB-ZA54&column=year year yyyy Number Mass balance year
http://data.g-e-m.dk/datasets?doi=10.17897/SNZB-ZA54&column=Location Location Text Name of the stake site, does not refer to individual stakes, but rather an approximate position due to the movement of the ice and repositioning of the stakes
http://data.g-e-m.dk/datasets?doi=10.17897/SNZB-ZA54&column=Net+balance+(m+ice) Net balance (m ice) m ice Number The net surface mass balance at the stake site between end of melt the year before and end of melt in the given year.