The World Glacier Inventory (WGI) contains information for over 100,000 glaciers throughout the world. Parameters within the inventory include geographic location, area, length, orientation, elevation and classification of morphological type and moraines. The inventory entries are based on a single observation in time and can be viewed as a ‘snapshot’ of the glacier at this time. The core of this collection is data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich. The development of the data product was funded through NOAA’s Environmental Services Data and Information Management (ESDIM) program.

WGMS (1989): World glacier inventory – Status 1988. Haeberli, W., Bösch, H., Scherler, K., Østrem, G. and Wallén, C. C. (eds.), IAHS (ICSI) / UNEP / UNESCO, World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, Switzerland: 458 pp. [pdf] [24 MB]

The available detailed glacier information in the WGI is mainly based on aerial photographs and maps and corresponds to about half of the total number and a quarter of the total area of all glaciers, as estimated by Dyurgerov and Meier (2005). In close cooperation with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the WGMS, the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) initiative was designed to continue this inventorying task with space-borne sensors.

WGI-data can be downloaded from the NSIDC-site.

GLIMS-data can be downloaded from the GLIMS-site.